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TRINITY  COLLEGE 
LIBRARY 


DURHAM,  NORTH  CAROLINA 


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STUDIES 


IN 

CONTEMPORARY  BIOGRAPHY 


STUDIES 


IN 

CONTEMPORARY 

BIOGRAPHY 


BY 


JAMES  BRYCE 

AUTHOR  OF  “THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIKE,”  “THE  AMERICAN 
COMMONWEALTH,”  ETC. 


CL- 


Nefo  Iforlt 

THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

LONDON:  MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  Ltd. 
1903 


All  rights  reserved 


Copyright,  1903, 

By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY, 


Set  up,  electrotyped,  and  published  April,  1903. 
une,  1903. 


Reprinted 


Nortoooti  $res2 

J.  S.  Cushing  &  Co.  —  Berwick  &  Smith  Co. 
Norwood,  Mass.,  U.S.A. 


TO 

CHARLES  WILLIAM  ELIOT 

PRESIDENT  OF  HARVARD  UNIVERSITY 

IN  COMMEMORATION  OF  A  LONG  AND 
VALUED  FRIENDSHIP 


PREFACE 

The  first  and  the  last  of  these  Studies  relate  to 
persons  whose  fame  has  gone  out  into  all  lands, 
and  about  whom  so  much  remains  to  be  said 
that  one  who  has  reflected  on  their  careers  need  - 
not  offer  an  apology  for  saying  something.  Of 
the  other  eighteen  sketches,  some  deal  with  emi¬ 
nent  men  whose  names  are  still  familiar,  but 
whose  personalities  have  begun  to  fade  from  the 
minds  of  the  present  generation.  The  rest  treat 
of  persons  who  came  less  before  the  public,  but 
whose  brilliant  gifts  and  solid  services  to  the 
world  make  them  equally  deserve  to  be  remem¬ 
bered  with  honour.  Having  been  privileged  to 
enjoy  their  friendship,  I  have  felt  it  a  duty  to  do 
what  a  friend  can  to  present  a  faithful  record 
of  their  excellence  which  may  help  to  keep  their 
memory  fresh  and  green. 

These  Studies  are,  however,  not  to  be  re- 

vii 


viii  Biographical  Studies 

garded  as  biographies,  even  in  miniature.  My 
aim  has  rather  been  to  analyse  the  character  and 
powers  of  each  of  the  persons  described,  and,  as 
far  as  possible,  to  convey  the  impression  which 
each  made  in  the  daily  converse  of  life.  All  of 
them,  except  Lord  Beaconsfield,  were  personally, 
and  most  of  them  intimately,  known  to  me. 

In  the  six  Studies  which  treat  of  politicians  I 
have  sought  to  set  aside  political  predilections, 
and  have  refrained  from  expressing  political 
opinions,  though  it  has  now  and  then  been 
necessary  to  point  out  instances  in  which  the 
subsequent  course  of  events  has  shown  the 
action  of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  Mr.  Lowe,  and 
Mr.  Gladstone  to  have  been  right  or  wrong  (as 
the  case  may  be)  in  the  action  they  respectively 
took. 

The  sketches  of  T.  H.  Green,  E.  A.  Freeman, 
and  J.  R.  Green  were  originally  written  for  Eng¬ 
lish  magazines,  and  most  of  the  other  Studies 
have  been  published  in  the  United  States.  All 
of  those  that  had  already  appeared  in  print  have 
been  enlarged  and  revised,  some  indeed  virtually 
rewritten.  I  have  to  thank  the  proprietors  of 
the  English  Historical  Review ,  the  Contempo- 


Preface 


IX 


rary  Review ,  and  the  New  York  Nation ,  as  also 
the  Century  Company  of  New  York,  for  their 
permission  to  use  so  much  of  the  matter  of  the 
volume  as  had  appeared  (in  its  original  form)  in 
the  organs  belonging  to  them  respectively. 

March  6,  1903. 


CONTENTS 


PAGE 


i/I. 

Benjamin  Disraeli,  Earl  of 

Beaconsfield  .... 

1804-1881 

I 

II. 

Arthur  Penrhyn  Stanley,  Dean 

/ 

of  Westminster 

1815-1881 

69 

III. 

Thomas  Hill  Green  . 

1836-1882 

85 

yTV. 

Archibald  Campbell  Tait,  Arch¬ 

bishop  of  Canterbury  . 

1811-1882 

100 

y. 

Anthony  Trollope  . 

1815-1882 

1 16 

VI. 

John  Richard  Green 

1837-1883 

I3I 

yin. 

Sir  George  Jessel 

1824-1883 

170 

VIII. 

Hugh  M'Calmont  Cairns,  Earl 

Cairns . 

1819-1885 

184 

1 IX. 

James  Fraser,  Bishop  of  Man¬ 

chester  . 

1818-1885 

196 

X. 

Stafford  Henry  Northcote, 

Earl  of  Iddesleigh 

1818-1887 

21 1 

XI. 

Charles  Stewart  Parnell 

1846-1891 

227 

?CII. 

Henry  Edward  Manning,  Arch¬ 

bishop  and  Cardinal 

1808-1892 

250 

XIII. 

Edward  Augustus  Freeman 

1823-1892 

262 

XIV. 

Robert  Lowe,  Viscount  Sher¬ 

brooke  ..... 

1811-1892 

293 

XV. 

William  Robertson  Smith 

1846-1894 

31 1 

^XVI. 

Henry  Sidgwick 

1838-1900 

327 

XVII. 

Edward  Ernest  Bowen 

1836-1901 

343 

XVIII. 

Edwin  Lawrence  Godkin  . 

1831-1902 

363 

.  XIX. 

John  Emerich  Dalberg-Acton, 

Lord  Acton  .... 

1834-1902 

382 

XX. 

William  Ewart  Gladstone 

1809-1898 

400 

xi 


BENJAMIN  DISRAELI,  EARL  OF 
BEACONSFIELD1 

When  Lord  Beaconsfield  died  in  1881  we  all 
wondered  what  people  would  think  of  him  fifty 
years  thereafter.  Divided  as  our  own  judgments 
were,  we  asked  whether  he  would  still  seem  a 
problem.  Would  opposite  views  regarding  his 
aims,  his  ideas,  the  sources  of  his  power,  still 
divide  the  learned,  and  perplex  the  ordinary 
reader?  Would  men  complain  that  history  can¬ 
not  be  good  for  much  when,  with  the  abundant 
materials  at  her  disposal,  she  had  not  framed  a 
consistent  theory  of  one  who  played  so  great  a 
part  in  so  ample  a  theatre  ?  People  called  him 
a  riddle ;  and  he  certainly  affected  a  sphinx-like 
attitude.  Would  the  riddle  be  easier  then  than 
it  was  for  us,  from  among  whom  the  man  had 
even  now  departed  ? 

When  he  died,  there  were  many  in  England 
who  revered  him  as  a  profound  thinker  and  a 
lofty  character,  animated  by  sincere  patriotism. 

1  No  “  authorised”  life  of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  nor  indeed  any  life  com¬ 
mensurate  with  the  part  he  played  in  English  politics,  has  yet  appeared. 


B 


2 


Biographical  Studies 

Others,  probably  as  numerous,  held  him  for  no 
better  than  a  cynical  charlatan,  bent  through 
life  on  his  own  advancement,  who  permitted  no 
sense  of  public  duty,  and  very  little  human 
compassion,  to  stand  in  the  way  of  his  insatiate 
ambition.  The  rest  did  not  know  what  to  think. 
They  felt  in  him  the  presence  of  power;  they 
felt  also  something  repellent.  They  could  not 
understand  how  a  man  who  seemed  hard  and 
unscrupulous  could  win  so  much  attachment  and 
command  so  much  obedience. 

Since  Disraeli  departed,  nearly  one-half  of 
those  fifty  years  has  passed  away.  Few  are 
living  who  can  claim  to  have  been  his  personal 
friends,  none  who  were  personal  enemies.  No 
living  statesman  professes  to  be  his  political 
disciple.  The  time  has  come  when  one  may  dis¬ 
cuss  his  character  and  estimate  his  career  without 
being  suspected  of  doing  so  with  a  party  bias 
or  from  a  party  motive.  Doubtless  those  who 
condemn  and  those  who  defend  or  excuse  some 
momentous  parts  of  his  conduct,  such  as,  for 
instance,  his  policy  in  the  East  and  in  Afghan¬ 
istan  from  1876  to  1879,  will  differ  in  their 
judgment  of  his  wisdom  and  foresight.  If  this 
be  a  difficulty,  it  is  an  unavoidable  one,  and  may 
never  quite  disappear.  There  were  in  the  days 
of  Augustus  some  who  blamed  that  sagacious 
ruler  for  seeking  to  check  the  expansion  of  the 
Roman  Empire.  There  were  in  the  days  of  King 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


3 

Henry  the  Second  some  who  censured  and  others 
who  praised  him  for  issuing  the  Constitutions  of 
Clarendon.  Both  questions  still  remain  open  to 
argument;  and  the  conclusion  any  one  forms 
must  affect  in  some  measure  his  judgment  of 
each  monarch’s  statesmanship.  So  differences  of 
opinion  about  particular  parts  of  Disraeli’s  long 
career  need  not  prevent  us  from  dispassionately 
inquiring  what  were  the  causes  that  enabled  him 
to  attain  so  striking  a  success,  and  what  is  the 
place  which  posterity  is  likely  to  assign  to  him 
among  the  rulers  of  England. 

First,  a  few  words  about  the  salient  events  of 
his  life,  not  by  way  of  writing  a  biography,  but 
to  explain  what  follows. 

He  was  born  in  London,  in  1804.  His  father, 
Isaac  Disraeli,  was  a  literary  man  of  cultivated 
taste  and  independent  means,  who  wrote  a  good 
many  books,  the  best  known  of  which  is  his 
Curiosities  of  Literature ,  a  rambling  work,  full 
of  entertaining  matter.  He  belonged  to  that 
division  of  the  Jewish  race  which  is  called 
the  Sephardim,  and  traces  itself  to  Spain  and 
Portugal ; 1  but  he  had  ceased  to  frequent  the 
synagogue  —  had,  in  fact,  broken  with  his  co¬ 
religionists.  Isaac  had  access  to  good  society,  so 
that  the  boy  saw  eminent  and  polished  men  from 
his  early  years,  and,  before  he  had  reached  man- 

1  Disraeli’s  family  claimed  to  be  of  Spanish  origin,  but  had  come  from 
Italy  to  England  shortly  before  1 748. 


4 


Biographical  Studies 


hood,  began  to  make  his  way  in  drawing-rooms 
where  he  met  the  wittiest  and  best-known  people 
of  the  day.  He  was  articled  to  a  firm  of  attor¬ 
neys  in  London  in  1821,  but  after  two  or  three 
years  quitted  a  sphere  for  which  his  peculiar  gifts 
were  ill  suited.1  Samuel  Rogers,  the  poet,  took 
a  fancy  to  him,  and  had  him  baptised  at  the  age 
of  thirteen.  As  he  grew  up,  he  was  often  to  be 
seen  with  Count  d’Orsay  and  Lady  Blessington, 
-well-known  figures  who  fluttered  on  the  confines 
of  fashion  and  Bohemia.  v  It  is  worth  remarking 
that  he  never  went  either  to  a  public  school  or  to 
a  university.  In  England  it  has  become  the 
fashion  to  assume  that  nearly  all  the  persons  who 
have  shone  in  public  life  have  been  educated  in  one 
of  the  great  public  schools,  and  that  they  owe  to 
its  training  their  power  of  dealing  with  men  and 
assemblies.  Such  a  superstition  is  sufficiently 
refuted  by  the  examples  of  men  like  Pitt, 
Macaulay,  Bishop  Wilberforce,  Disraeli,  Cobden, 
Bright,  and  Cecil  Rhodes,  not  to  add  instances 
drawn  from  Ireland  and  Scotland,  where  till  very 
recently  there  have  been  no  public  schools  in  the 
current  English  sense. 

Disraeli  first  appeared  before  the  public  in 
i8?fi  when  he  published  Vivian  Grey,  an  amazing 


1  There  are  few  legal  allusions  in  his  novels,  fewer  in  proportion  than 
in  Shakespeare’s  plays,  but  an  ingenious  travesty  of  the  English  use  of 
legal  fictions  may  be  found  in  the  Voyage  of  Captain  Popatiilla,  a  satire 
on  the  English  constitution  and  government.  Popanilla,  who  is  to  be 
tried  for  treason,  is,  to  his  astonishment,  indicted  for  killing  a  camelopard. 


Lord  Beaconsfield  5 

book  to  be  the  production  of  a  youth  of  twenty- 
two.  Other  novels  —  The  Young  Duke ,  Venetia , 
Contarini  Fleming,  Henrietta  Temple  —  main¬ 
tained  without  greatly  increasing  his  reputation 
between  1831  and  1837.  Then  came  two  politi¬ 
cal  stories,  Coningsby  and  Sybil. ’  in  1844  and  1845, 
followed  by  Tancred  in  1847  and  The  Life  of 
Lord  George  Bentinck  in  1852;  with  a  long  inter¬ 
val  of  silence,  till,  in  1870,  he  produced  Lothair, 
in  1880  Endymion.  Besides  these  he  published 
in  1839  the  tragedy  of  Alarcos ,  and  in  1835  the 
more  ambitious  Revohitionary  Epick ,  neither  of 
which  had  much  success.  In  1828-31  he  took  a 
journey  through  the  East,  visiting  Constantinople, 
Syria,  and  Egypt,  and  it  was  then,  no  doubt,  in 
lands  peculiarly  interesting  to  a  man  of  his  race, 
that  he  conceived  those  ideas  about  the  East  and 
its  mysterious  influences  which  figure  largely  in 
some  of  his  stories,  notably  in  Tayicred. ,  and  which 
in  1878  had  no  small  share  in  shaping  his  policy 
and  that  of  England.  Meanwhile,  he  had  not  for¬ 
gotten  the  political  aspirations  which  we  see  in 
Vivian  Grey.  In  1832,  just  before  the  passing  of 
the  Reform  Bill,  he  appeared  as  candidate  for  the 
petty  borough  of  High  Wycombe  in  Buckingham¬ 
shire,  and  was  defeated  by  a  majority  of  twenty- 
three  to  twelve,  so  few  were  the  voters  in  many 
boroughs  of  those  days.  After  the  Bill  had  en¬ 
larged  the  constituency,  he  tried  his  luck  twice 
again,  in  1833  and  1835,  both  times  unsuccess- 


6  Biographical  Studies 

fully,  and  came  before  two  other  boroughs  also, 
Taunton  and  Marylebone,  though  in  the  latter 
case  no  contest  took  place.  Such  activity  in  a 
youth  with  little  backing  from  friends  and  com¬ 
paratively  slender  means  marked  him  already  as 
a  man  of  spirit  and  ambition.  His  next  attempt 
was  more  lucky.  At  the  general  election  of  1837 
he  was  returned  for  Maidstone. 

His  political  professions  during  this  period 
have  been  keenly  canvassed ;  nor  is  it  easy  to 
form  a  fair  judgment  on  them.  In  1832  he 
had  sought  and  obtained  recommendations  from 
Joseph  Hume  and  Daniel  O'Connell,  and  people 
had  therefore  set  him  down  as  a  Radical.  Al¬ 
though,  however,  his  professions  of  political 
faith  included  dogmas  which,  like  triennial  parlia¬ 
ments,  the  ballot,  and  the  imposition  of  a  new 
land-tax,  were  part  of  the  so-called  “  Radical  ” 
platform,  still  there  was  a  vague  and  fanciful 
note  in  his  utterances,  and  an  aversion  to  the 
conventional  Whig  way  of  putting  things,  which 
showed  that  he  was  not  a  thorough-going 
adherent  of  any  of  the  then  existing  political 
parties,  but  was  trying  to  strike  out  a  new  line 
and  attract  men  by  the  promise  of  something 
fresher  and  bolder  than  the  recognised  schools 
offered.  In  1834  his  hostility  to  Whiggism 
was  becoming  more  pronounced,  and  a  tender¬ 
ness  for  some  Tory  doctrines  more  discernible. 
Finally,  in  1835,  he  appeared  as  an  avowed 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


7 


Tory,  accepting  the  regular  creed  of  the  party, 
and  declaring  himself  a  follower  of  Sir  Robert 
Peel,  but  still  putting  forward  a  number  of 
views  peculiar  to  himself,  which  he  thereafter 
developed  not  only  in  his  speeches  but  in  his 
novels.  Coningsby  and  Sybil  were  meant  to  be 
a  kind  of  manifesto  of  the  “Young  England” 
party  —  a  party  which  can  hardly  be  said  to  have 
existed  outside  his  own  mind,  though  a  small 
knot  of  aristocratic  youths  who  caught  up  and 
repeated  his  phrases  seemed  to  form  a  nucleus 
for  it. 

The  fair  conclusion  from  his  deliverances 
during  these  early  years  is  that  he  was  at  first 
much  more  of  a  Liberal  than  a  Tory,  yet  with 
ideas  distinctively  his  own  which  made  him  appear 
in  a  manner  independent  of  both  parties.  The 
old  party  lines  might  seem  to  have  been  almost 
effaced  by  the  struggle  over  the  Reform  Bill ; 
and  it  was  natural  for  a  bold  and  inventive  mind 
to  imagine  a  new  departure,  and  put  forward  a 
programme  in  which  a  sort  of  Radicalism  was 
mingled  with  doctrines  of  a  different  type.  But 
when  it  became  clear  after  a  time  that  the  old 
political  divisions  still  subsisted,  and  that  such  a 
distinctive  position  as  he  had  conceived  could  not 
be  maintained,  he  then,  having  to  choose  between 
one  or  other  of  the  two  recognised  parties,  chose 
the  Tories,  dropping  some  tenets  he  had  previ¬ 
ously  advocated  which  were  inconsistent  with  their 


8 


Biographical  Studies 

creed,  but  retaining  much  of  his  peculiar  way 
of  looking  at  political  questions.  How  far  the 
change  which  passed  over  him  was  a  natural 
(  development,  how  far  due  to  mere  calculations  of 
interest,  there  is  little  use  discussing:  perhaps  he 
did  not  quite  know  himself.  Looking  back,  we  of 
to-day  might  be  inclined  to  think  that  he  received 
more  blame  for  it  than  he  deserved,  but  contem¬ 
porary  observers  generally  set  it  down  to  a  want 
of  principle.  In  one  thing,  however,  he  was  con¬ 
sistent  then,  and  remained  consistent  ever  after — 
his  hearty  hatred  of  the  Whigs.  There  was  some¬ 
thing  in  the  dryness  and  coldness  of  the  great 
Whig  families,  their  stiff  constitutionalism,  their 
belief  in  political  economy,  perhaps  also  their 
occasional  toyings  with  the  Nonconformists 
(always  an  object  of  dislike  to  Disraeli),  which 
roused  all  the  antagonisms  of  his  nature,  personal 
and  Oriental. 

When  he  entered  the  House  of  Commons  he 
was  already  well  known  to  fashionable  London, 
partly  by  his  striking  face  and  his  powers  of  con¬ 
versation,  partly  by  the  eccentricities  of  his  dress, 
—  he  loved  bright-coloured  waistcoats,  and  decked 
himself  with  rings,  —  partly  by  his  novels,  whose 
satirical  pungency  had  made  a  noise  in  society. 
He  had  also  become,  owing  to  his  apparent  change 
of  front,  the  object  of  angry  criticism.  A  quarrel 
with  Daniel  O’Connell,  in  the  course  of  which  he 
challenged  the  great  Irishman  to  fight  a  duel,  each 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


9 


party  having  described  the  other  with  a  free¬ 
dom  of  language  bordering  on  scurrility,  made 
him,  for  a  time,  the  talk  of  the  political  world. 
Thus  there  was  more  curiosity  evoked  by  his 
first  speech  than  usually  awaits  a  new  member. 
It  was  unsuccessful,  not  from  want  of  ability, 
but  because  its  tone  did  not  suit  the  temper  of 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  because  a  hostile 
section  of  the  audience  sought  to  disconcert  him 
by  their  laughter.  Undeterred  by  this  ridi¬ 
cule,  he  continued  to  speak,  though  in  a  less 
ambitious  and  less  artificial  vein,  till  after  a  few 
years  he  had  become  one  of  the  most  conspicuous 
unofficial  members.  At  first  no  one  had  eulo¬ 
gised  Peel  more  warmly,  but  after  a  time  he 
edged  away  from  the  minister,  whether  repelled 
by  his  coldness,  which  showed  that  in  that 
quarter  no  promotion  was  to  be  expected,  or 
shrewdly  perceiving  that  Peel  was  taking  a  line 
which  would  ultimately  separate  him  from  the 
bulk  of  the  Conservative  party.  This  happened 
in  1846,  when  Peel,  convinced  that  the  import 
duties  on  corn  were  economically  unsound,  pro¬ 
posed  their  abolition.  Disraeli,  who,  since  1843, 
had  taken  repeated  opportunities  of  firing  stray 
shots  at  the  powerful  Prime  Minister,  now  bore  a 
foremost  part  not  only  in  attacking  him,  but  in 
organising  the  Protectionist  party,  and  prompting 
its  leader,  Lord  George  Bentinck.  In  embracing 
free  trade,  Peel  carried  with  him  his  own  personal 


io  Biographical  Studies 

friends  and  disciples,  men  like  Gladstone,  Sidney 
Herbert,  Lord  Lincoln,  Sir  James  Graham,  Card- 
well,  and  a  good  many  others,  the  intellectual  elite 
of  the  Tory  party.  The  more  numerous  section 
who  clung  to  Protection  had  numbers,  wealth, 
respectability,  cohesion,  but  brains  and  tongues 
were  scarce.  An  adroit  tactician  and  incisive 
speaker  was  of  priceless  value  to  them.  Such 
a  man  they  found  in  Disraeli,  while  he  gained, 
sooner  than  he  had  expected,  an  opportunity  of 
playing  a  leading  part  in  the  eyes  of  Parliament 
and  the  country.  In  the  end  of  1848,  Lord 
George  Bentinck,  who,  though  a  man  of  natural 
force  and  capable  of  industry  when  he  pleased, 
had  been  to  some  extent  Disraeli’s  mouthpiece, 
died,  leaving  his  prompter  indisputably  the  keenest 
intellect  in  the  Tory-Protectionist  party.  In  1850, 
Peel,  who  might  possibly  have  in  time  brought 
the  bulk  of  that  party  back  to  its  allegiance 
to  him,  was  killed  by  a  fall  from  his  horse. 
The  Peelites  drifted  more  and  more  towards 
Liberalism,  so  that  when  Lord  Derby,  who,  in 
1851,  had  been  commissioned  as  head  of  the 
Tory  party  to  form  a  ministry,  invited  them  to 
join  him,  they  refused  to  do  so,  imagining  him 
to  be  still  in  favour  of  the  corn  duties,  and 
resenting  the  behaviour  of  the  Protectionist 
section  to  their  own  master.  Being  thus  un¬ 
able  to  find  one  of  them  to  lead  his  followers  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  Lord  Derby  turned  in 


Lord  Beaconsfield  1 1 

1852  to  Disraeli,  giving  him,  with  the  leadership, 
the  office  of  Chancellor  of  the  Exchequer.  The 
appointment  was  thought  a  strange  one,  because 
Disraeli  brought  to  it  absolutely  no  knowledge 
of  finance  and  no  official  experience.  He  had 
never  been  so  much  as  an  Under-Secretary. 
The  Tories  themselves  murmured  that  one  whom 
they  regarded  as  an  adventurer  should  be  raised 
to  so  high  a  place.  After  a  few  months  Lord 
Derby’s  ministry  fell,  defeated  on  the  Chancellor 
of  the  Exchequer’s  Budget,  which  had  been  vehe¬ 
mently  attacked  by  Mr.  Gladstone.  This  was 
the  beginning  of  that  protracted  duel  between 
him  and  Mr.  Disraeli  which  lasted  down  till  the 
end  of  the  latter’s  life. 

For  the  following  fourteen  years  Disraeli’s 
.occupation  was  that  of  a  leader_of  opposition, 
varied  by  one  brief  interval  of  office  in  1858-59. 
His  party  was  in  a  permanent  minority,  so  that 
nothing  was  left  for  its  chief  but  to  fight  with 
skill,  courage,  and  resolution  a  series  of  losing 
battles.  This  he  did  with  admirable  tenacity  of 
purpose.  Once  or  twice  in  every  session  he  used 
to  rally  his  forces  for  a  general  engagement,  and 
though  always  defeated,  he  never  suffered  himself 
to  be  dispirited  by  defeat.  During  the  rest  of  the 
time  he  was  keenly  watchful,  exposing  all  the  mis¬ 
takes  in  domestic  affairs  of  the  successive  Liberal 
Governments,  and  when  complications  arose  in 
foreign  politics,  always  professing,  and  generally 


i  2  Biographical  Studies 

manifesting,  a  patriotic  desire  not  to  embarrass 
the  Executive,  lest  national  interests  should  suffer. 
Through  all  these  years  he  had  to  struggle,  not 
only  with  a  hostile  majority  in  office,  but  also 
with  disaffection  among  his  own  followers.  Many 
of  the  landed  aristocracy  could  not  bring  them¬ 
selves  to  acquiesce  in  the  leadership  of  a  new 
man,  of  foreign  origin,  whose  career  had  been 
erratic,  and  whose  ideas  they  found  it  hard  to 
assimilate.  Ascribing  their  long  exclusion  from 
power  to  his  presence,  they  more  than  once 
conspired  to  dethrone  him.  In  1861  these  plots 
were  thickest,  and  Disraeli  was  for  a  time  left 
almost  alone.  But  as  it  happened,  there  never 
arose  in  the  House  of  Commons  any  one  on  the 
Conservative  side  possessing  gifts  of  speech  and 
of  strategy  comparable  to  those  which  in  him 
had  been  matured  and  polished  by  long  ex¬ 
perience,  while  he  had  the  address  to  acquire 
an  ascendency  over  the  mind  of  Lord  Derby, 
still  the  titular  head  of  the  party,  who,  being 
a  man  of  straightforward  character,  high  social 
position,  and  brilliant  oratorical  talent,  was  there¬ 
withal  somewhat  lazy  and  superficial,  and  there¬ 
fore  disposed  to  lean  on  his  lieutenant  in  the 
Lower  House,  and  to  borrow  from  him  those 
astute  schemes  of  policy  which  Disraeli  was  fertile 
in  devising.  Thus,  through  Lord  Derby’s  support, 
and  by  his  own  imperturbable  confidence,  he  frus¬ 
trated  all  the  plots  of  the  malcontent  Tories. 


Lord  Beaconsfield  i  3 

New  men  came  up  who  had  not  witnessed  his 
earlier  escapades,  but  knew  him  only  as  the  bold 
and  skilful  leader  of  their  party  in  the  House  of 
Commons.  He  made  himself  personally  agree¬ 
able  to  them,  encouraged  them  in  their  first 
efforts,  diffused  his  ideas  among  them,  stimulated 
the  local  organisation  of  the  party,  and  held  out 
hopes  of  great  things  to  be  done  when  fortune 
should  at  last  revisit  the  Tory  banner. 

While  Lord  Palmerston  lived,  these  exertions 
seemed  to  bear  little  fruit.  That  minister  had,  in 
his  later  years,  settled  down  into  a  sort  of  practical 
Toryism,  and  both  parties  acquiesced  in  his  rule. 
But,  on  his  death,  the  scene  changed.  Lord  Rus¬ 
sell  and  Mr.  Gladstone  brought  forward  a  Reform 
Bill  strong  enough  to  evoke  the  latent  Conser¬ 
vative  feeling  of  a  House  of  Commons  which, 
though  showing  a  nominally  Liberal  majority, 
had  been  chosen  under  Palmerstonian  auspices. 
The  defeat  of  the  Bill,  due  to  the  defection  of 
the  more  timorous  Whigs,  was  followed  by  the 
resignation  of  Lord  Russell’s  Ministry.  Lord 
Derby  and  Mr.  Disraeli  came  into  power,  and, 
next  year,  carried  a  Reform  Bill  which,  as  it  was 
finally  shaped  in  its  passage  through  the  House, 
really  went  further  than  Lord  Russell’s  had  done, 
enfranchising  a  much  larger  number  of  the  work¬ 
ing  classes  in  boroughs.  To  have  carried  this  Bill 
remains  the  greatest  of  Disraeli’s  triumphs.  He 
had  to  push  it  gently  through  a  hostile  House  of 


14 


Biographical  Studies 

Commons  by  wheedling  a  section  of  the  Liberal 
majority,  against  the  appeals  of  their  legitimate 
leader.  He  had  also  to  persuade  his  own  followers 
to  support  a  measure  which  they  had  all  their  lives 
been  condemning,  and  which  was,  or  in  their  view 
ought  to  have  been,  more  dangerous  to  the  Con¬ 
stitution  than  the  one  which  they  and  the  recal¬ 
citrant  Whigs  had  thrown  out  in  the  preceding 
year.  He  had,  as  he  happily  and  audaciously 
expressed  it,  to  educate  his  party  into  doing  the 
very  thing  which  they  (though  certainly  not  he 
himself)  had  cordially  and  consistently  denounced. 

The  process  was  scarcely  complete  when  the 
retirement  of  Lord  Derby,  whose  health  had  given 
way,  opened  Disraeli’s  path  to  the  post  of  first 
Minister  of  the  Crown.  He  dissolved  Parliament, 
expecting  to  receive  a  majority  from  the  gratitude 
of  the  working  class  whom  his  Act  had  admitted 
to  the  suffrage.  To  his  own  surprise,  and  to  the 
boundless  disgust  of  the  Tories,  a  Liberal  House 
of  Commons  was  again  returned,  which  drove  him 
and  his  friends  once  more  into  the  cold  shade  of 
opposition.  He  was  now  sixty-four  years  of  age, 
had  suffered  an  unexpected  and  mortifying  dis¬ 
comfiture,  and  had  no  longer  the  great  name  of 
Lord  Derby  to  cover  him.  Disaffected  voices 
were  again  heard  among  his  own  party,  while  the 
Liberals,  reinstalled  in  power,  were  led  by  the 
rival  whose  unequalled  popularity  in  the  country 
made  him  for  the  time  omnipotent.  Still  Mr. 


Lord  Beaconsfield  i  5 

Disraeli  was  not  disheartened.  He  fought  the 
battle  of  apparently  hopeless  resistance  with  his 
old  tact,  wariness,  and  tenacity,  losing  no  occasion 
for  any  criticism  that  could  damage  the  measures 
—  strong  and  large  measures  —  which  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone’s  government  brought  forward. 

Before  long  the  tide  turned.  The  Dissenters 
resented  the  Education  Act  of  1870.  A  reaction 
in  favour  of  Conservatism  set  in,  which  grew 
so  fast  that,  in  i874xthe  general  election  gave,  for 
the  first  time  since  1846,  a  decided  Conservative 
majority.  Mr.  Disraeli  became  again  Prime  . 
Minister,  and  now  a  Prime  Minister  no  longer 
on  sufferance,  but  with  the  absolute  command  of 
a  dominant  party,  rising  so  much  above  the  rest 
oTTheTCabinet  as  to  appear  the  sole  author  of  its 
policy.  In  1876,  feeling  the  weight  of  age,  he 
transferred  himself  to  the  House  of  Lords  as 
Earl  of  Beaconsfield.  The  policy  he  followed 
(from  1876  till  1880)  in  the  troubles  which  arose 
in  the  Turkish  East  out  of  the  insurrection  in 
Herzegovina  and  the  massacres  in  Bulgaria,  as 
well  as  that  subsequently  pursued  in  Afghanistan 
and  in  South  Africa,  while  it  received  the  enthusi¬ 
astic  approval  of  the  soldiers,  the  stockbrokers, 
and  the  richer  classes  generally,  raised  no  less 
vehement  opposition  in  other  sections  of  the 
nation,  and  especially  in  those  two  which,  when 
heartily  united  and  excited,  have  usually  been 
masters  of  England  —  the  Protestant  Noncon- 


1 6  Biographical  Studies 

formists  and  the  upper  part  of  the  working  class. 
An  election  fought  with  unusual  heat  left  him  in 
so  decided  a  minority  that  he  resigned  office  in 
April  1880,  without  waiting  for  an  adverse  vote 
in  Parliament.  When  the  result  had  become 
clear  he  observed,  “  They,”  meaning  his  friends, 
“will  come  in  again,  but  I  shall  not.”  A  year 
later  he  died. 

Here  is  a  wonderful  career,  not  less  wonder¬ 
ful  to  those  who  live  in  the  midst  of  English 
politics  and  society  than  it  appears  to  observers 
in  other  countries.  A  man  with  few  external 
advantages,  not  even  that  of  education  at  a  uni¬ 
versity,  where  useful  friendships  are  formed,  with 
grave  positive  disadvantages  in  his  Jewish  ex¬ 
traction  and  the  vagaries  of  his  first  years  of 
public  life,  presses  forward,  step  by  step,  through 
slights  and  disappointments  which  retard  but  never 
dishearten  him,  assumes  as  of  right  the  leadership 
of  a  party,  —  the  aristocratic  party,  the  party  in  those 
days  peculiarly  suspicious  of  new  men  and  poor 
men,  —  wins  a  reputation  for  sagacity  which  makes 
his  early  errors  forgotten,  becomes  in  old  age  the 
favourite  of  a  court,  the  master  of  a  great  country, 
one  of  the  three  or  four  arbiters  of  Europe. 
There  is  here  more  than  one  problem  to  solve, 
or,  at  least,  a  problem  with  more  than  one  aspect. 
What  was  the  true  character  of  the  man  who  had 
sustained  such  a  part  ?  Did  he  hold  any  principles, 
or  was  he  merely  playing  with  them  as  counters  ? 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


J7 


By  what  gifts  or  arts  did  he  win  such  a  success? 
Was  there  really  a  mystery  beneath  the  wizard’s 
robe  which  he  delighted  to  wrap  around  him  ? 
And  how,  being  so  unlike  the  Englishmen  among 
whom  his  lot  was  cast,  did  he  so  fascinate  and 
rule  them  ? 

Imagine  a  man  of  strong  will  and  brilliant 
intellectual  powers,  belonging  to  an  ancient  and 
persecuted  race,  who  finds  himself  born  in  a 
foreign  country,  amid  a  people  for  whose  ideas 
and  habits  he  has  no  sympathy  and  scant 


him  proud,  ambitious,  self- 


confident —  too  ambitious  to  rest  content  in  a 
private  station,  so  self-confident  as  to  believe  that 
he  can  win  whatever  he  aspires  to.  To  achieve 
success,  he  must  bend  his  pride,  must  use  the 
language  and  humour  the  prejudices  of  those  he 
has  to  deal  with ;  while  his  pride  avenges  itself  by 
silent  scorn  or  thinly  disguised  irony.  Accus¬ 
tomed  to  observe  things  from  without,  he  discerns 
the  weak  points  of  all  political  parties,  the  hollow¬ 
ness  of  institutions  and  watchwords,  the  instability 
of  popular  passion.  If  his  imagination  be  more 
susceptible  than  his  emotions,  his  intellect  more 
active  than  his  conscience,  the  isolation  in  which 
he  stands  and  the  superior  insight  it  affords  him 
may  render  him  cold,  calculating,  self-centred. 
The  sentiment  of  personal  honour  may  remain, 
because  his  pride  will  support  it;  and  he  will  be 
tenacious  of  the  ideas  which  he  has  struck  out, 


i  8  Biographical  Studies 

because  they  are  his  own.  But  for  ordinary 
principles  of  conduct  he  may  have  small  regard, 
because  he  has  not  grown  up  under  the  conven¬ 
tional  morality  of  the  time  and  nation,  but  has 
looked  on  it  merely  as  a  phenomenon  to  be 
recognised  and  reckoned  with,  because  he  has 
noted  how  much  there  is  in  it  of  unreality  or 
pharisaism  —  how  far  it  sometimes  is  from  repre¬ 
senting  or  expressing  either  the  higher  judgments 
of  philosophy  or  the  higher  precepts  of  religion. 
Realising  and  perhaps  exaggerating  the  power 
of  his  own  intelligence,  he  will  secretly  revolve 
schemes  of  ambition  wherein  genius,  uncon¬ 
trolled  by  fears  or  by  conscience,  makes  all 
things  bend  to  its  purposes,  till  the  scruples  and 
hesitations  of  common  humanity  seem  to  him 
only  parts  of  men’s  cowardice  or  stupidity.  What 
success  he  will  win  when  he  comes  to  carry  out 
such  schemes  in  practice  will  largely  depend  on 
the  circumstances  in  which  he  finds  himself,  as 
well  as  on  his  gift  for  judging  of  them.  He  may 
become  a  Napoleon.  He  may  fall  in  a  premature 
collision  with  forces  which  want  of  sympathy  has 
prevented  him  from  estimating. 

In  some  of  his  novels,  and  most  fully  in  the 
first  of  them,  Mr.  Disraeli  sketched  a  character 
and  foreshadowed  a  career  not  altogether  unlike 
that  which  has  just  been  indicated.  It  would  be 
unfair  to  treat  as  autobiographical,  though  some 
of  his  critics  have  done  so,  the  picture  of  Vivian 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


I9 


Grey.  What  that  singular  book  shows  is  that, 
at  an  age  when  his  contemporaries  were  lads  at 
college,  absorbed  in  cricket  matches  or  Latin 
verse-making,  Disraeli  had  already  meditated 
profoundly  on  the  conditions  and  methods  of 
worldly  success,  had  rejected  the  allurements  of 
pleasure  and  the  attractions  of  literature,  as  well 
as  the  ideal  life  of  philosophy,  had  conceived  of 
a  character  isolated,  ambitious,  intense,  resolute, 
untrammelled  by  scruples,  who  moulds  men  to 
his  purposes  by  the  sheer  force  of  his  intellect, 
humouring  their  foibles,  using  their  weaknesses, 
and  luring  them  into  his  chosen  path  by  the  bait 
of  self-interest. 

To  lay  stress  on  the  fact  that  Mr.  Disraeli 
was  of  Hebrew  birth  is  not,  though  some  of  his 
political  antagonists  stooped  so  to  use  it,  to  cast 
any  reproach  upon  him :  it  is  only  to  note  a  fact 
of  the  utmost  importance  for  a  proper  compre¬ 
hension  of  his  position.  The  Jews  were  at  the  be¬ 
ginning  of  the  nineteenth  century  still  foreigners 
in  England,  not  only  on  account  of  their  religion, 
with  its  mass  of  ancient  rites  and  usages,  but  also 
because  they  were  filled  with  the  memory  of 
centuries  of  persecution,  and  perceived  that  in 
some  parts  of  Europe  the  old  spirit  of  hatred  had 
not  died  out.  The  antiquity  of  their  race,  their 
sense  of  its  long-suffering  and  isolation,  their 
pride  in  the  intellectual  achievements  of  those 
ancestors  whose  blood,  not  largely  mixed  with 


20 


Biographical  Studies 

that  of  any  other  race,  flows  in  their  veins,  leads 
the  stronger  or  more  reflective  spirits  to  revenge 
themselves  by  a  kind  of  scorn  upon  the  upstart 
Western  peoples  among  whom  their  lot  is  cast. 
The  mockery  one  finds  in  Heinrich  Heine  could 
not  have  come  from  a  Teuton.  Even  while  imitat¬ 
ing,  as  the  wealthier  of  them  have  latterly  begun 
to  imitate,  the  manners  and  luxury  of  those 
nominal  Christians  among  whom  they  live,  they 
retain  their  feeling  of  detachment,  and  are  apt 
to  regard  with  a  coldly  observant  curiosity  the 
beliefs,  prejudices,  enthusiasms  of  the  nations  of 
Europe.  The  same  passionate  intensity  which 
makes  the  grandeur  of  the  ancient  Hebrew 
literature  still  lives  among  them,  though  often 
narrowed  by  ages  of  oppression,  and  gives  them 
the  peculiar  effectiveness  that  comes  from  turning 
all  the  powers  of  the  mind,  imaginative  as  well  as 
reasoning,  into  a  single  channel,  be  that  channel 
what  it  may.  They  produce,  in  proportion  to 
their  numbers,  an  unusually  large  number  of  able 
and  successful  men,  as  any  one  may  prove  by 
recounting  the  eminent  Jews  of  the  last  seventy 
years.  This  success  has  most  often  been  won  in 
practical  life,  in  commerce,  or  at  the  bar,  or  in 
the  press  (which  over  the  European  continent 
they  so  largely  control);  yet  often  also  in  the 
higher  walks  of  literature  or  science,  less  fre¬ 
quently  in  art,  most  frequently  in  music. 

Mr.  Disraeli  had  three  of  these  characteristics 


Lord  Beaconsfield  2  1 


of  his  race  in  full  measure — detachment,  intensity, 
the  passion  for  material  success.  Nature  gave 
him  a  resolute  will,  a  keen  and  precociously  active 
intellect,  a  vehement  individuality,  that  is  to 
say,  a  consciousness  of  his  own  powers,  and  a 
determination  to  make  them  recognised  by  his 
fellows.  In  some  men,  the  passion  to  succeed  is 
clogged  by  the  fear  of  failure ;  in  others,  the 
sense  of  their  greatness  is  self-sufficing  and  in¬ 
disposes  them  to  effort.  But  with  him  ambi¬ 
tion  spurred  self-confidence,  and  self-confidence 
justified  ambition.  He  grew  up  in  a  cultivated 
home,  familiar  not  only  with  books  but  with  the 
brightest  and  most  polished  men  and  women  of 
the  day,  whose  conversation  sharpened  his  wits 
almost  from  childhood.  No  religious  influences 
worked  upon  him,  for  his  father  had  ceased  to 
be  a  Jew  in  faith  without  becoming  even  nom¬ 
inally  a  Christian,  and  there  is  little  in  his  writ¬ 
ings  to  show  that  he  had  ever  felt  anything  more 
than  an  imaginative,  or  what  may  be  called  an 
historical,  interest  in  religion.1  Thus  his  develop¬ 
ment  was  purely  intellectual.  The  society  he 
moved  in  was  a  society  of  men  and  women  of  the 
world  —  witty,  superficial  in  its  interests,  without 


1  That  historical  interest  he  did  feel  deeply.  One  might  almost  say 
of  him  that  he  was  a  Christian  because  he  was  a  Jew,  for  Christianity  was 
to  him  the  proper  development  of  the  ancient  religion  of  Israel.  “The 
Jews,”  he  observes  in  the  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck,  “  represent  the 
Semitic  principle,  all  that  is  most  spiritual  in  our  nature.  .  .  .  It  is  deplo¬ 
rable  that  several  millions  of  Jews  still  persist  in  believing  only  a  part  of 
their  religion.” 


2  2  Biographical  Studies 

seriousriess  or  reverence.  He  felt  himself  no  Eng¬ 
lishman,  and  watched  English  life  and  politics  as  a 
student  of  natural  history  might  watch  the  habits 
of  bees  or  ants.  English  society  was  then,  and 
perhaps  is  still,  more  complex,  more  full  of  in¬ 
consistencies,  of  contrasts  between  theory  and 
practice,  between  appearances  and  realities,  than 
that  of  any  other  country.  Nowhere  so  much 
limitation  of  view  among  the  fashionable,  so  much 
pharisaism  among  the  respectable,  so  much  vul¬ 
garity  among  the  rich,  mixed  with  so  much  real 
earnestness,  benevolence,  and  good  sense ;  no¬ 
where,  therefore,  so  much  to  seem  merely  ridicu¬ 
lous  to  one  who  looked  at  it  from  without,  wanting 
the  sympathy  which  comes  from  the  love  of  man¬ 
kind,  or  even  from  the  love  of  one’s  country.  It 
was  natural  for  a  young  man  with  Disraeli’s  gifts 
to  mock  at  what  he  saw.  But  he  would  not  sit 
still  in  mere  contempt.  The  thirst  for  power 
and  fame  gave  him  no  rest.  He  must  gain  what 
he  saw  every  one  around  him  struggling  for. 
He  must  triumph  over  these  people  whose  follies 
amused  him ;  and  the  sense  that  he  perceived 
and  could  use  their  follies  would  add  zest  to 
his  triumph.  He  might  have  been  a  great 
satirist ;  he  resolved  to  become  a  great  statesman. 
For  such  a  career,  his  Hebrew  detachment  gave 
him  some  eminent  advantages.  It  enabled  him 
to  take  a  cooler  and  more  scientific  view  of  the 
social  and  political  phenomena  he  had  to  deal 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


2  3 


with.  He  was  not  led  astray  by  party  cries. 
He  did  not  share  vulgar  prejudices.  He  calcu¬ 
lated  the  forces  at  work  as  an  engineer  calculates 
the  strength  of  his  materials,  the  strain  they  have 
to  bear  from  the  wind,  and  the  weights  they 
must  support.  And  what  he  had  to  plan  was 
not  the  success  of  a  cause,  which  might  depend 
on  a  thousand  things  out  of  his  ken,  but  his  own 
success,  a  simpler  matter. 

A  still  greater  source  of  strength  lay  in  his 
Hebrew  intensity.  It  would  have  pleased  him, 
so  full  of  pride  in  the  pure  blood  of  his  race,1 
to  attribute  to  that  purity  the  singular  power 
of  concentration  which  the  Jews  undoubtedly 
possess.  They  have  the  faculty  of  throwing  the 
whole  stress  of  their  natures  into  the  pursuit  of 
one  object,  fixing  their  eyes  on  it  alone,  sacri¬ 
ficing  to  it  other  desires,  clinging  to  it  even  when 
it  seems  unattainable.  Disraeli  was  only  twenty- 
eight  when  he  made  his  first  attempt  to  enter 
the  House  of  Commons.  Four  repulses  did 
not  discourage  him,  though  his  means  were  but 
scanty  to  support  such  contests ;  and  the  fifth 

1  Though  it  has  been  maintained  that  in  the  Dark  and  Middle  Ages  a 
considerable  number  of  Gentiles  found  their  way  into  Jewish  communities 
and  became  Judaised. 

The  high  average  of  intellectual  power  among  the  Jews  need  not  be 
attributed  to  purity  of  race  ;  it  is  sufficiently  explained  by  their  history. 
Nor  is  it  clear  that  where  two  of  the  more  advanced  races  are  mixed  by 
intermarriage,  the  product  is  inferior  to  either  of  the  parent  stocks.  On 
the  contrary,  such  a  mixture,  eg.  of  Teutonic  and  Slavonic  blood,  or  of 
Celtic  and  Teutonic,  gives  a  result  at  least  equal  in  capacity  to  either  of 
the  pure-blooded  races  which  have  been  so  commingled. 


24  Biographical  Studies 

time  he  succeeded.  When  his  first  speech  in 
Parliament  had  been  received  with  laughter,  and 
politicians  were  congratulating  themselves  that 
this  adventurer  had  found  his  level,  he  calmly 
told  them  that  he  had  always  ended  by  suc¬ 
ceeding  in  whatever  he  attempted,  and  that  he 
would  succeed  in  this  too.  He  received  no  help 
from  his  own  side,  who  regarded  him  with 
suspicion,  but  forced  himself  into  prominence, 
and  at  last  to  leadership,  by  his  complete  superi¬ 
ority  to  rebuffs.  Through  the  long  years  in 
which  he  had  to  make  head  against  a  majority 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  never  seemed 
disheartened  by  his  repeated  defeats,  never  re¬ 
laxed  the  vigilance  with  which  he  watched  his 
adversaries,  never  indulged  himself  (though  he 
was  physically  indolent  and  often  in  poor  health) 
by  staying  away  from  Parliament,  even  when 
business  was  slack ;  never  missed  an  opportunity 
for  exposing  a  blunder  of  his  adversaries,  or 
commending  the  good  service  of  one  of  his 
own  followers.  The  same  curious  tenacity  was 
apparent  in  his  ideas.  Before  he  was  twenty- 
two  years  of  age  he  had,  under  the  inspiration 
of  Bolingbroke,  excogitated  a  theory  of  the 
Constitution  of  England,  of  the  way  England 
should  be  governed  at  home  and  her  policy 
directed  abroad,  from  which  he  hardly  swerved 
through  all  his  later  life.  Often  as  he  was 
accused  of  inconsistency  he  probably  believed 


Lord  Beaconsfield  25 

himself  to  be,  and  in  a  sense  he  was,  sub¬ 
stantially  faithful,  I  will  not  say  to  the  same 
doctrines,  but  to  the  same  notions  or  tendencies ; 
and  one  could  discover  from  the  phrases  he  em¬ 
ployed  how  he  fancied  himself  to  be  really  follow¬ 
ing  out  these  old  notions,  even  when  his  conduct 
seemed  opposed  to  the  traditions  of  his  party.1 
The  weakness  of  intense  minds  is  their  tendency 
to  narrowness,  and  this  weakness  was  in  so  far 
his  that,  while  always  ready  for  new  expedients, 
he  was  not  accessible  to  new  ideas.  Indeed, 
the  old  ideas  were  too  much  a  part  of  himself, 
stamped  with  his  own  individuality,  to  be  for¬ 
saken  or  even  varied.  He  did  not  love  know¬ 
ledge,  nor  enjoy  speculation  for  its  own  sake ;  he 
valued  views  as  they  pleased  his  imagination  or 
as  they  carried  practical  results  with  them ;  and 
having  framed  his  theory  once  for  all  and  worked 
steadily  upon  its  lines,  he  was  not  the  man  to 
admit  that  it  had  been  defective,  and  to  set  him¬ 
self  in  later  life  to  repair  it.  His  pride  was  in¬ 
volved  in  proving  it  correct  by  applying  it. 

With  this  resolute  concentration  of  purpose 
there  went  an  undaunted  courage  —  a  quality  less 
rare  among  English  statesmen,  but  eminently 

1  He  had  an  intellectual  arrogance,  which  made  him  dislike  what 
may  be  called  the  Radical  conception  of  human  equality.  In  the  Life 
of  Lord  George  Bentinck  he  remarks,  “  The  Jews  are  a  living  and  the 
most  striking  evidence  of  the  falsity  of  that  pernicious  doctrine  of  modern 
times,  the  natural  equality  of  man.  .  .  .  All  the  tendencies  of  the  Jewish 
race  are  conservative.  Their  bias  is  to  religion,  property,  and  natural 
aristocracy.” 


26  Biographical  Studies 

laudable  in  him,  because  for  a  great  part  of  his 
career  he  had  no  family  or  party  connections  to 
back  him  up,  but  was  obliged  to  face  the  world 
with  nothing  but  his  own  self-confidence.  So  far 
from  seeking  to  conceal  his  Jewish  origin,  he  dis¬ 
played  his  pride  in  it,  and  refused  all  support  to 
the  efforts  which  the  Tor)’  party  made  to  maintain 
the  exclusion  of  Jews  from  Parliament.  Nobody 
showed  more  self-possession  and  (except  on  two 
or  three  occasions)  more  perfect  self-command  in 
the  hot  strife  of  Parliament  than  this  suspected 
stranger.  His  opponents  learnt  to  fear  one  who 
never  feared  for  himself ;  his  followers  knew  that 
their  chief  would  not  fail  them  in  the  hour  of 
danger.  His  very  face  and  bearing  had  in  them 
an  impassive  calmness  which  magnetised  those 
who  watched  him.  He  liked  to  surround  himself 
with  mystery,  to  pose  as  remote,  majestic,  self- 
centred,  to  appear  above  the  need  of  a  confidant. 
He  would  sit  for  hours  on  his  bench  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  listening  with  eyes  half-shut  to  furious 
assaults  on  himself  and  his  policy,  not  showing  by 
the  movement  of  a  muscle  that  he  had  felt  a 
wound ;  and  when  he  rose  to  reply  would  dis¬ 
charge  his  sarcasms  with  an  air  of  easy  coolness. 
That  this  indifference  was  sometimes  simulated 
appeared  by  the  resentment  he  showed  afterwards. 

Ambition  such  as  his  could  not  afford  to  be 
scrupulous,  nor  have  his  admirers  ever  claimed 
conscientiousness  as  one  of  his  merits.  One  who 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


27 


sets  power  and  fame  before  him  as  the  main 
ends  to  be  pursued  may  no  doubt  be  restrained 
by  pride  from  the  use  of  such  means  as  are 
obviously  low  and  dishonourable.  Other  ques¬ 
tionable  means  he  may  reject  because  he  knows 
that  the  opinion  of  those  whose  good-will  and 
good  word  he  must  secure  would  condemn  them. 
But  he  will  not  be  likely  to  allow  kindliness  or 
compassion  to  stand  in  his  way ;  nor  will  he  be 
very  regardful  of  truth.  To  a  statesman,  who 
must  necessarily  have  many  facts  in  his  know¬ 
ledge,  or  many  plans  in  his  mind,  which  the 
interests  of  his  colleagues,  or  of  his  party,  or  of 
the  nation,  forbid  him  to  reveal,  the  temptation  to 
put  questioners  on  a  false  scent,  and  to  seem  to 
agree  where  he  really  dissents,  is  at  all  times  a 
strong  one.  An  honest  man  may  sometimes  be 
betrayed  into  yielding  to  it ;  and  those  who  know 
how  difficult  are  the  cases  of  conscience  that  arise 
will  not  deal  harshly  with  a  possibly  misleading 
silence,  or  even  with  the  evasion  of  an  embar¬ 
rassing  inquiry,  where  a  real  public  interest 
can  be  pleaded,  for  the  existence  of  such  a  public 
interest,  if  it  does  not  justify,  may  palliate  omis¬ 
sions  to  make  a  full  disclosure  of  the  facts.  All 
things  considered,  the  standard  of  truthfulness 
among  English  public  men  has  (of  course  with 
some  conspicuous  exceptions)  been  a  high  one. 
Of  that  standard  Disraeli  fell  short.  People  did 
not  take  his  word  for  a  thing  as  they  would  have 


28  Biographical  Studies 

taken  the  word  of  the  Duke  of  Wellington,  or 
Lord  Althorp,  or  Lord  Derby,  or  Lord  Russell, 
or  even  of  that  not  very  rigid  moralist,  Lord 
Palmerston.  Instances  of  his  lapses  were  not 
wanting  as  late  as  1877.  His  behaviour  toward 
Sir  Robert  Peel,  whom  he  plied  with  every  dart 
of  sarcasm,  after  having  shortly  before  lavished 
praises  on  him,  and  sought  office  under  him,  has 
often  been  commented  on.1  Disraeli  was  himself 
(as  those  who  knew  him  have  often  stated)  accus¬ 
tomed  to  justify  it  by  observing  that  he  was 
then  an  insignificant  personage,  to  whom  it  was 
supremely  important  to  attract  public  notice  and 
make  a  political  position ;  that  the  opportunity 
of  attacking  the  powerful  Prime  Minister,  at  a 
moment  when  their  altered  attitude  toward  the 
Corn  Laws  had  exposed  the  Ministry  to  the  sus¬ 
picions  of  their  own  party,  was  too  good  to  be 
lost ;  and  that  he  was  therefore  obliged  to  assail 
Peel,  though  he  had  himself  no  particular  attach¬ 
ment  to  the  Corn  Laws,  and  believed  Peel  to  have 
been  a  bona  fide  convert.  It  was  therefore  no 
personal  resentment  against  one  who  had  slighted 
him,  but  merely  the  exigencies  of  his  own  career, 
that  drove  him  to  this  course,  whose  fortunate 
result  proved  the  soundness  of  his  calculations. 

1  On  one  occasion  he  went  so  far  as  to  deny  that  he  had  asked  Peel  for 
office,  relying  on  the  fact  that  the  letter  which  contained  the  request  was 
marked  “  private,”  so  that  Peel  could  not  use  it  to  disprove  his  state¬ 
ment  ( Letters  of  Sir  Robert  Peel ,  by  C.  S.  Parker,  vol.  ii.  p.  486  ;  vol. 
iii.  pp.  347,  348). 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


29 


This  defence  will  not  surprise  any  one  who 
is  familiar  with  Disraeli’s  earlier  novels.  These 
stories  are  as  far  as  possible  from*  being  immoral ; 
that  is  to  say,  there  is  nothing  in  them  unbecom¬ 
ing  or  corrupting.  Friendship,  patriotism,  love, 
are  all  recognised  as  powerful  and  worthy  motives 
of  conduct.  That  which  is  wanting  is  the  sense  of 
right  and  wrong.  His  personages  have  for  certain 
purposes  the  conventional  sense  of  honour,  though 
seldom  a  fine  sense,  but  they  do  not  ask  whether 
such  and  such  a  course  is  conformable  to  principle. 
They  move  in  a  world  which  is  polished,  agree¬ 
able,  dignified,  averse  to  baseness  and  vulgarity, 
but  in  which  conscience  and  religion  scarcely 
seem  to  exist.  The  men  live  for  pleasure  or 
fame,  the  women  for  pleasure  or  love. 


Some  allowance  must,  of  course,  be  made  for 
the  circumstances  of  Disraeli’s  position  and  early 
training.  He  was  brought  up  neither  a  Jew  nor 
a  Christian.  The  elder  people  who  took  him 
by  the  hand  when  he  entered  life,  people  like 
Samuel  Rogers  and  Lady  Blessington,  were  not 
the  people  to  give  lessons  in  morality.  Lord 
Lyndhurst,  the  first  of  his  powerful  political 
friends,  and  the  man  whose  example  most  affected 
him,  was,  with  all  his  splendid  gifts,  conspicuously 
wanting  in  political  principle.  Add  to  this  the 
isolation  in  which  the  young  man  found  himself, 
standing  outside  the  common  stream  of  English 
life,  not  sharing  its  sentiments,  perceiving  the 


30  Biographical  Studies 

hollowness  of  much  that  passed  for  virtue  and 
patriotism,  and  it  is  easy  to  understand  how  he 
should  have  been  as  perfect  a  cynic  at  twenty- 
five  as  their  experience  of  the  world  makes  many 
at  sixty.  If  he  had  loved  truth  or  mankind,  he 
might  have  quickly  worked  through  his  youthful 
cynicism.  But  pride  and  ambition,  the  pride  of 
race  and  the  pride  of  genius,  left  no  room  for 
these  sentiments.  Nor  was  his  cynicism  the  fruit 
merely  of  a  keen  and  sceptical  intelligence.  It 
came  from  a  cold  heart. 

The  pursuit  of  fame  and  power,  to  which  he 
gave  all  his  efforts,  is  presented  in  his  writings  as 
the  only  alternative  ideal  to  a  life  of  pleasure ;  and 
he  probably  regarded  those  who  pursued  some 
other  as  either  fools  or  weaklings.  Early  in  his 
political  life  he  said  one  night  to  Mr.  Bright 
(from  whom  I  heard  the  anecdote),  as  they  took 
their  umbrellas  in  the  cloak-room  of  the  House 
of  Commons :  “  After  all,  what  is  it  that  brings 
you  and  me  here  ?  Fame !  This  is  the  true 
arena.  I  might  have  occupied  a  literary  throne ; 
but  I  have  renounced  it  for  this  career.”  The 
external  pomps  and  trappings  of  life,  titles,  stately 
houses  and  far-spreading  parks,  all  those  gauds  and 
vanities  with  which  sumptuous  wealth  surrounds 
itself,  had  throughout  his  life  a  singular  fascination 
for  him.  He  liked  to  mock  at  them  in  his  novels, 
but  they  fascinated  him  none  the  less.  One  can 
understand  how  they  might  fire  the  imagination 


Lord  Beaconsfield  3  1 

of  an  ambitious  youth  who  saw  them  from  a 
distance  —  might  even  retain  their  charm  for  one 
who  was  just  struggling  into  the  society  which 
possessed  them,  and  who  desired  to  feel  himself 
the  equal  of  the  possessors.  It  is  stranger  that, 
when  he  had  harnessed  the  English  aristocracy 
to  his  chariot,  and  was  driving  them  where  he 
pleased,  he  should  have  continued  to  admire  such 
things.  So,  however,  it  was.  There  was  even 
in  him  a  vein  of  inordinate  deference  to  rank 
and  wealth  which  would  in  a  less  eminent  person 
have  been  called  snobbishness.  In  his  will  he 
directs  that  his  estate  of  Hughenden  Manor,  in 
Buckinghamshire,  shall  pass  under  an  entail  as 
strict  as  he  could  devise,  that  the  person  who 
succeeds  to  it  shall  always  bear  the  name  of 
Disraeli.  His  ambition  is  the  common,  not  to 
say  vulgar,  ambition  of  the  English  parvenu ,  to 
found  a  “county  family.”  In  his  story  of 
Endymion ,  published  a  few  months  before  his 
death,  the  hero,  starting  from  small  beginnings, 
ends  by  becoming  prime  minister:  this  is  the 
crown  of  his  career,  the  noblest  triumph  an 
Englishman  can  achieve.  It  might  have  been 
thought  that  one  who  had  been  through  it  all, 
who  had  realised  the  dreams  of  his  boyhood,  who 
had  every  opportunity  of  learning  what  power 
and  fame  come  to,  would  have  liked  to  set  forth 
some  other  conception  of  the  end  of  human  life, 
or  would  not  have  told  the  world  so  naively  of  his 


32  Biographical  Studies 

self-content  at  having  attained  the  aim  he  had 
worked  for.  With  most  men  the  flower  they  have 
plucked  withers.  It  might  have  been  expected 
that  one  who  was  in  other  things  an  ironical  cynic 
would  at  least  have  sought  to  seem  disillusionised. 

To  say  that  Disraeli’s  heart  was  somewhat 
cold  is  by  no  means  to  say  that  he  was  heartless. 
He  was  one  of  those  strong  natures  who  permit 
neither  persons  nor  principles  to  stand  in  their 
way.  His  doctrine  was  that  politics  had  nothing 
to  do  with  sentiment ;  so  those  who  appealed  to 
him  on  grounds  of  humanity  appealed  in  vain. 
No  act  of  his  life  ever  so  much  offended  English 
opinion  as  the  airy  fashion  in  which  he  tossed  aside 
the  news  of  the  Bulgarian  massacre  of  1876.  It 
incensed  sections  who  were  strong  enough,  when 
thoroughly  roused,  to  bring  about  his  fall.  But 
he  was  far  from  being  unkindly.  He  knew  how 
to  attach  men  to  him  by  friendly  deeds  as  well  as 
friendly  words.  He  seldom  missed  an  oppor¬ 
tunity  of  saying  something  pleasant  and  cheering 
to  a  debutant  in  Parliament,  whether  of  his  own 
party  or  the  opposite.  He  was  not  selfish  in 
little  things ;  was  always  ready  to  consider  the 
comfort  and  convenience  of  those  who  surrounded 
him.  Age  and  success,  so  far  from  making  him 
morose  or  supercilious,  softened  the  asperities  of 
his  character  and  developed  the  affectionate  side 
of  it.  His  last  novel,  published  a  few  months 
before  his  death,  contains  more  human  kindliness, 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


33 


a  fuller  recognition  of  the  worth  of  friendship  and 
the  beauty  of  sisterly  and  conjugal  love,  than  do 
the  writings  of  his  earlier  manhood.  What  it 
wants  in  intellectual  power  it  makes  up  for  in  a 
mellower  and  more  tender  tone.  Of  loyalty  to 
his  political  friends  he  was  a  model,  and  nothing 
did  more  to  secure  his  command  of  the  party 
than  its  sense  that  his  professional  honour,  so  to 
speak,  could  be  implicitly  relied  upon.  To  his 
wife,  a  warm-hearted  woman  older  than  himself, 
and  inferior  to  him  in  education,  he  was  uni¬ 
formly  affectionate  and  indeed  devoted.  The 
first  use  he  made  of  his  power  as  Prime  Minister 
was  to  procure  for  her  the  title  of  viscountess. 
Being  once  asked  point  blank  by  a  lady  what 
he  thought  of  his  life-long  opponent,  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone  answered  that  two  things  had  always  struck 
him  as  very  admirable  in  Lord  Beaconsfield’s 
character  —  his  perfect  loyalty  to  his  wife,  and 
his  perfect  loyalty  to  his  own  race.  A  story 
used  to  be  told  how,  in  Disraeli’s  earlier  days, 
when  his  political  position  was  still  far  from 
assured,  he  and  his  wife  happened  to  be  the 
guests  of  the  chief  of  the  party,  and  that  chief  so 
far  forgot  good  manners  as  to  quiz  Mrs.  Disraeli 
at  the  dinner-table.  Next  morning  Disraeli, 
whose  visit  was  to  have  lasted  for  some  days 
longer,  announced  that  he  must  leave  immediately. 
The  host  besought  him  to  stay,  and  made  all 
possible  apologies.  But  Disraeli  was  inexorable, 


D 


34  Biographical  Studies 

and  carried  his  wife  off  forthwith.  To  literary 
men,  whatever  their  opinions,  he  was  ready  to 
give  a  helping  hand,  representing  himself  as  one 
of  their  profession.  In  paying  compliments  he 
was  singularly  expert,  and  few  used  the  art  so  well 
to  win  friends  and  disarm  enemies.  He  knew  how 
to  please  Englishmen,  and  especially  the  young, 
by  showing  interest  in  their  tastes  and  pleasures, 
and,  without  being  what  would  be  called  genial, 
was  never  wanting  in  bonhomie.  In  society  he 
was  a  perfect  man  of  the  world  —  told  his  anec¬ 
dote  apropos,  wound  up  a  discussion  by  some 
epigrammatic  phrase,  talked  to  the  guest  next 
him,  if  he  thought  that  guest’s  position  made  him 
worth  talking  to,  as  he  would  to  an  old  acquaint¬ 
ance.  But  he  had  few  intimates;  nor  did  his 
apparent  frankness  unveil  his  real  thoughts. 

He  was  not  of  those  who  complicate  politi¬ 
cal  opposition  with  private  hatreds.  Looking 
on  politics  as  a  game,  he  liked,  when  he  took 
off  his  armour,  to  feel  himself  on  friendly  terms 
with  his  antagonists,  and  often  seemed  surprised 
to  find  that  they  remembered  as  personal  affronts 
the  blows  which  he  had  dealt  in  the  tournament. 
Two  or  three  years  before  his  death,  a  friend 
asked  him  whether  there  was  in  London  any  one 
with  whom  he  would  not  shake  hands.  Reflect¬ 
ing  for  a  moment,  he  answered,  “  Only  one,”  and 
named  Robert  Lowe,  who  had  said  hard  things  of 
him,  and  to  whom,  when  Lowe  was  on  one  occasion 


Lord  Beaconsfield  35 

in  his  power,  he  had  behaved  with  cruelty.  Yet 
his  resentments  could  smoulder  long.  In  Lothair 
he  attacked,  under  a  thin  disguise,  a  distinguished 
man  of  letters  who  had  criticised  his  conduct  years 
before.  In  Endymion  he  gratified  what  was  evi¬ 
dently  an  ancient  grudge  by  a  spiteful  presentation 
of  Thackeray,  as  he  had  indulged  his  more  bitter 
dislike  of  John  Wilson  Croker  by  portraying 
that  politician  in  Coningsby  under  the  name  of 
Nicholas  Rigby.  For  the  greatest  of  his  ad¬ 
versaries  he  felt,  there  is  reason  to  believe, 
genuine  admiration,  mingled  with  inability  to 
comprehend  a  nature  so  unlike  his  own.  No 
passage  in  the  striking  speech  which  that  ad¬ 
versary  pronounced,  one  might  almost  say,  over 
Lord  Beaconsfield’s  grave  —  a  speech  which  may 
possibly  go  down  to  posterity  with  its  subject  — 
was  more  impressive  than  the  sentence  in  which 
he  declared  that  he  had  the  best  reason  to  believe 
that,  in  their  constant  warfare,  Lord  Beaconsfield 
had  not  been  actuated  by  any  personal  hostility. 
Brave  men,  if  they  can  respect,  seldom  dislike,  a 
formidable  antagonist. 

His  mental  powers  were  singularly  well  suited 
to  the  rest  of  his  character  —  were,  so  to  speak, 
all  of  a  piece  with  it.  One  sometimes  sees  in¬ 
tellects  which  are  out  of  keeping  with  the  active 
or  emotional  parts  of  the  man.  One  sees  persons 
whose  thought  is  vigorous,  clear,  comprehensive, 
while  their  conduct  is  timid ;  or  a  comparatively 


3  6  Biographical  Studies 

narrow  intelligence  joined  to  an  enterprising 
spirit ;  or  a  sober,  reflective,  sceptical  turn  of  mind 
yoked  to  an  ardent  and  impulsive  temperament. 
What  we  call  the  follies  of  the  wise  often  spring 
,  from  some  such  source.  Not  so  with  him.  His 
intelligence  had  the  same  boldness,  intensity,  con¬ 
centration,  directness,  which  we  discover  in  the 
1  rest  of  the  man.  It  was  just  the  right  instru¬ 
ment,  not  perhaps  for  the  normal  career  of  a 
normal  Englishman  seeking  political  success,  but 
for  the  particular  kind  of  work  Disraeli  had 
planned  to  do ;  and  this  inner  harmony  was  one 
1  of  the  chief  causes  of  his  success,  as  the  want  of  it 
has  caused  the  failure  of  so  many  gifted  natures. 

The  range  of  his  mind  was  not  wide.  All  its 
products  were  like  one  another.  No  one  of  them 
gives  the  impression  that  Disraeli  could,  had  he  so 
wished,  have  succeeded  in  a  wholly  diverse  line. 
It  was  a  peculiar  mind  :  there  is  even  more  variety 
in  minds  than  in  faces.  It  was  not  logical  or  dis¬ 
cursive,  liking  to  mass  and  arrange  stores  of  know¬ 
ledge,  and  draw  inferences  from  them,  nor  was  it 
judicial,  with  a  turn  for  weighing  reasons  and 
reaching  a  decision  which  recognises  all  the  facts 
and  is  not  confused  by  their  seeming  contradic¬ 
tions.  Neither  was  it  analytically  subtle.  It 
reached  its  conclusions  by  a  process  of  intuition 
or  divination  in  which  there  was  an  imaginative 
as  well  as  a  reflective  element.  It  might  almost 
have  been  called  an  artist’s  mind,  capable  of  deep 


Lord  Beaconsfield  37 

meditation,  but  meditating  in  an  imaginative 
way,  not  so  much  on  facts  as  on  its  own  views 
of  facts,  on  the  pictures  which  its  own  creative 
faculty  had  called  up.  The  meditation  became 
dreamy,  but  the  dreaminess  was  corrected  by  an 
exceedingly  keen  and  quick  power  of  observation, 
not  the  scientific  observation  of  the  philosopher, 
but  rather  the  enjoying  observation  of  the  artist 
who  sees  how  he  can  use  the  characteristic 
details  which  he  notes,  or  the  observation  of 
the  forensic  advocate  (an  artist,  too,  in  his  way) 
who  perceives  how  they  can  be  fitted  into  the 
presentation  of  his  case.  There  are,  of  course, 
other  qualities  in  Disraeli’s  work.  As  a  states¬ 
man  he  was  obliged  to  learn  how  to  state  facts, 
to  argue,  to  dissect  an  opponent’s  arguments. 
But  the  characteristic  note,  both  of  his  speeches 
and  of  his  writings,  is  the  combination  of  a  few 
large  ideas,  clear,  perhaps,  to  himself,  but  gen¬ 
erally  expressed  with  grandiose  vagueness,  and 
often  quite  out  of  relation  to  the  facts  as  other 
people  saw  them,  with  a  turn  for  acutely  fasten¬ 
ing  upon  small  incidents  or  personal  traits.  In 
his  speeches  he  used  his  command  of  sonorous 
phrases  and  lively  illustrations,  sometimes  to  sup¬ 
port  the  views  he  was  advancing,  but  more  fre¬ 
quently  to  conceal  the  weakness  of  those  views, 
that  is,  to  make  up  for  the  absence  of  such 
solid  arguments  as  were  likely  to  move  his 
hearers.  Everybody  is  now  and  then  conscious 


3  8  Biographical  Studies 

of  holding  with  assured  conviction  theories  which 
he  would  find  it  hard  to  prove  to  a  given 
audience,  partly  because  it  is  too  much  trouble 
to  trace  out  the  process  by  which  they  were 
reached,  partly  because  uninstructed  listeners 
could  not  be  made  to  feel  the  full  cogency  of 
the  considerations  on  which  his  own  mind 
relies.  Disraeli  was  usually  in  this  condition 
with  regard  to  his  political  and  social  doctrines. 
He  believed  them,  but  as  he  had  not  reached 
them  by  logic,  he  was  not  prepared  to  use 
logic  to  establish  them ;  so  he  picked  up  some 
plausible  illustration,  or  attacked  the  opposite 
doctrine  and  its  supporters  with  a  fire  of  raillery 
or  invective.  This  non-ratiocinative  quality  of 
his  thinking  was  a  source  both  of  strength  and 
of  weakness  —  of  weakness,  because  he  could 
not  prove  his  propositions ;  of  strength,  because, 
stated  as  he  stated  them,  it  was  not  less  hard 
to  disprove  them.  That  mark  of  a  superior 
mind,  that  it  must  have  a  theory,  was  never 
wanting.  Some  one  said  of  him  that  he  was 
“  the  ruins  of  a  thinker.”  He  could  not  rest 
content,  like  many  among  his  followers,  with  a 
prejudice,  a  dogma  delivered  by  tradition,  a  stolid 
suspicion  unamenable  to  argument.  He  would 
not  acquiesce  in  negation.  He  must  have  a 
theory,  a  positive  theory,  to  show  not  only  that 
his  antagonist’s  view  was  erroneous,  but  that  he 
had  himself  a  more  excellent  way.  These  theories 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


39 


generally  had  in  them  a  measure  of  truth  and 
value  for  any  one  who  could  analyse  them ;  but 
as  this  was  exactly  what  the  rank  and  file  of  the 
party  could  not  do,  they  got  into  sad  confusion 
when  they  tried  to  talk  his  language. 

He  could  hardly  be  called  a  well-read  man, 
nor  were  his  intellectual  interests  numerous.  His 
education  had  consisted  mainly  in  promiscuous 
reading  during  boyhood  and  early  youth.  There 
are  worse  kinds  of  education  for  an  active  in¬ 
telligence  than  to  let  it  have  the  run  of  a  large 
library.  The  wild  browsings  of  youth,  when 
curiosity  is  strong  as  hunger,  stir  the  mind  and 
give  the  memory  some  of  the  best  food  it  ever 
gets.  The  weak  point  of  such  a  method  is  that  it 
does  not  teach  accuracy  nor  the  art  of  systematic 
study.  In  middle  life  natural  indolence  and  his 
political  occupations  had  kept  Disraeli  from  filling 
up  the  gaps  in  his  knowledge,  while,  in  conversa¬ 
tion,  what  he  liked  best  was  persiflage.  He 
was,  however,  tolerably  familiar  with  the  ancient 
classics,  and  with  modern  English  and  French 
literature;  enjoyed  Quintilian  and  Lucian, preferred 
Sophocles  to  /Eschylus  and  (apparently)  Horace 
to  Virgil,  despised  Browning,  considered  Tenny¬ 
son  the  best  of  contemporary  poets,  but  “  not  a 
poet  of  a  high  order.”  1  Physical  science  seems 
never  to  have  attracted  him.  Political  economy 

1  See  Sir  S.  Northcote’s  report  of  a  conversation  with  Disraeli  in  his 
last  years  ( Life  of  Sir  Stafford  Northcote ,  vol.  ii.). 


40  Biographical  Studies 

he  hated  and  mocked  at  almost  as  heartily  as 
did  Carlyle.  People  have  measured  his  know¬ 
ledge  of  history  and  geography  by  observing  that 
he  placed  the  Crucifixion  in  the  lifetime  of 
Augustus,  and  thought,  down  till  1878,  when 
he  had  to  make  a  speech  about  Afghanistan,  that 
the  Andes  were  the  highest  mountains  in  the 
world.  But  geography  is  a  subject  which  a  man 
of  affairs  does  not  think  of  reading  up  in  later 
life :  he  is  content  if  he  can  get  information 
when  he  needs  it.  There  are  some  bits  of  meta¬ 
physics  and  some  historical  allusions  scattered 
over  his  novels,  but  these  are  mostly  slight  or 
superficial.  He  amused  himself  and  the  public 
by  now  and  then  propounding  doctrines  on  agri¬ 
cultural  matters,  but  would  not  appear  to  have 
mastered  either  husbandry  or  any  other  economi¬ 
cal  or  commercial  subject.  Such  things  were  not 
in  his  way.  He  had  been  so  little  in  office  as 
not  to  have  been  forced  to  apply  himself  to  them, 
while  the  tide  of  pure  intellectual  curiosity  had 
long  since  ebbed. 

For  so-called  “sports”  he  had  little  taste.  He 
liked  to  go  mooning  in  a  meditative  way  round  his 
fields  and  copses,  and  he  certainly  enjoyed  nature ; 
but  there  seems  to  be  no  solid  evidence  that  the 
primrose  was  his  favourite  flower.  In  his  fond¬ 
ness  for  particular  words  and  phrases  there 
was  a  touch  of  his  artistic  quality,  and  a  touch 
also  of  the  cynical  view  that  words  are  the 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


4i 


counters  with  which  the  wise  play  their  game. 
There  is  a  passage  in  Contarini  Fleming  (a  story 
into  which  he  has  put  a  good  deal  of  himself) 
where  this  is  set  out.  Contarini  tells  his  father 
that  he  left  college  “  because  they  taught  me  only 
words,  and  I  wished  to  learn  ideas.”  His  father 
answers,  “  Few  ideas  are  correct  ones,  and  what 
are  correct,  no  one  can  ascertain ;  but  with  words 
we  govern  men.” 

He  went  on  acting  on  this  belief  in  the  power 
of  words  till  he  became  the  victim  of  his  own 
phrases,  just  as  people  who  talk  cynically  for 
effect  grow  sometimes  into  real  cynics.  When 
he  had  invented  a  phrase  which  happily  expressed 
the  aspect  he  wished  his  view,  or  some  part  of  his 
policy,  to  bear,  he  came  to  believe  in  the  phrase, 
and  to  think  that  the  facts  were  altered  by  the 
colour  the  phrase  put  upon  them.  During  the 
contest  for  the  extension  of  the  parliamentary 
franchise,  he  declared  himself  “  in  favour  of 
popular  privileges,  but  opposed  to  democratic 
rights.”  When  he  was  accused  of  having  as-  3 
sented,  at  the  Congress  of  Berlin,  to  the  dis¬ 
memberment  of  the  Turkish  Empire,  he  said 
that  what  had  been  done  was  “  not  dismember¬ 
ment,  but  consolidation.”  No  statesman  of  recent 
times  has  given  currency  to  so  many  quasi-epi- 
grammatic  expressions :  “  organised  hypocrisy,” 
“England  dislikes  coalitions,”  “plundering  and 
blundering,”  “  peace  with  honour,”  “  imperium 


42  Biographical  Studies 

et  libertas ,”  “  a  scientific  frontier,”  “  I  am  on 
the  side  of  the  angels,”  are  a  few,  not  perhaps 
the  best,  though  the  best  remembered,  of  the 
many  which  issued  from  his  fertile  mint.  This 
turn  for  epigram,  not  common  in  England, 
sometimes  led  him  into  scrapes  which  would 
have  damaged  a  man  of  less  imperturbable 
coolness.  No  one  else  could  have  ventured  to 
say,  when  he  had  induced  the  Tories  to  pass 
a  Reform  Bill  stronger  than  the  one  they  had 
rejected  from  the  Liberals  in  the  preceding 
year,  that  it  had  been  his  mission  “  to  educate 
his  party.”  Some  of  his  opponents  professed 
to  be  shocked  by  such  audacity,  and  many 
old  Tories  privily  gnashed  their  teeth.  But  the 
country  received  the  dictum  in  the  spirit  in  which 
it  was  spoken.  “  It  was  Disraeli  all  over.” 

If  his  intellect  was  not  of  wide  range,  it  was 
within  its  range  a  weapon  of  the  finest  flexibility 
and  temper.  It  was  ingenious,  ready,  incisive. 
It  detected  in  a  moment  the  weak  point,  if  not 
of  an  argument,  yet  of  an  attitude  or  of  a  character. 
Its  imaginative  quality  made  it  often  picturesque, 
sometimes  even  impressive.  Disraeli  had  the 
artist’s  delight  in  a  situation  for  its  own  sake, 
and  what  people  censured  as  insincerity  or  frivolity 
was  frequently  only  the  zest  which  he  felt  in  posing, 
not  so  much  because  there  was  anything  to  be 
gained,  as  because  he  realised  his  aptitude  for 
improvising  a  new  part  in  the  drama  which  he 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


43 


always  felt  himself  to  be  playing.  The  humour  of 
the  situation  was  too  good  to  be  wasted.  Perhaps 
this  love  of  merry  mischief  may  have  had  some¬ 
thing  to  do  with  his  tendency  to  confer  honours 
on  those  whom  the  world  thought  least  deserving. 

His  books  are  not  only  a  valuable  revelation 
of  his  mind,  but  have  more  literary  merit  than 
critics  have  commonly  allowed  to  them,  perhaps 
because  we  are  apt,  when  a  man  excels  in  one 
walk,  to  deem  him  to  have  failed  in  any  other 
wherein  he  does  not  reach  the  same  level.  The 
novels  foam  over  with  cleverness ;  indeed,  Vivian 
Grey ,  with  all  its  youthful  faults,  gives  as  great 
an  impression  of  intellectual  brilliance  as  does 
anything  Disraeli  ever  wrote  or  spoke.  Their 
easy  fertility  makes  them  seem  to  be  only, 
so  to  speak,  a  few  sketches  out  of  a  large 
portfolio.  There  is  some  variety  in  the  sub¬ 
jects —  Contarini  Fleming  and  Tancrcd  are 
more  romantic  than  the  others,  Sybil  and  Con- 
ingsby  more  political  —  as  well  as  in  the  merits 
of  the  stories.  The  two  latest,  Lothair  and 
Endymion ,  works  of  his  old  age,  are  markedly 
inferior  in  spirit  and  invention ;  but  the  general 
features  are  the  same  in  all  —  a  lively  fancy,  a 
knack  of  hitting  characters  off  in  a  few  lines  and 
of  catching  the  superficial  aspects  of  society,  a 
brisk  narrative,  a  sprightly  dialogue,  a  keen  insight 
into  the  selfishness  of  men  and  the  vanities  of 
women,  with  flashes  of  wit  lighting  up  the  whole 


44  Biographical  Studies 

stage.  It  is  always  a  stage.  The  brilliance 
is  never  open-air  sunshine.  There  is  scarcely 
one  of  the  characters  whom  we  feel  we  might 
have  met  and  known.  Heroes  and  heroines 
are  theatrical  figures ;  their  pathos  rings  false, 
their  love,  though  described  as  passionate,  does 
not  spring  from  the  inner  recesses  of  the  soul. 
The  studies  of  men  of  the  world,  and  partic¬ 
ularly  of  heartless  ones,  are  the  most  life-like ; 
yet,  even  here,  any  one  who  wants  to  feel  the 
difference  between  the  great  painter  and  the 
clever  sketcher  need  only  compare  Thackeray’s 
Marquis  of  Steyne  with  Disraeli’s  Marquis  of 
Monmouth,  both  of  them  suggested  by  the  same 
original.  There  is  little  intensity,  little  dramatic 
power  in  these  stories,  as  also  is  in  his  play 
of  Alarcos;  and  if  we  read  them  with  pleasure 
it  is  not  for  the  sake  either  of  plot  or  of  char¬ 
acter,  but  because  they  contain  so  many  sparkling 
witticisms  and  reflections,  setting  in  a  strong 
light,  yet  not  always  an  unkindly  light,  the  seamy 
side  of  politics  and  human  nature.  The  slovenli¬ 
ness  of  their  style,  which  is  often  pompous,  but 
seldom  pure,  makes  them  appear  to  have  been 
written  hastily.  But  Disraeli  seems  to  have 
taken  the  composition  of  them  (except,  perhaps, 
the  two  latest)  quite  seriously.  When  he  wrote 
the  earlier  tales,  he  meant  to  achieve  literary 
greatness ;  while  the  middle  ones,  especially 
Coningsby  and  Sybil ’  were  designed  as  political 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


45 


manifestoes.  The  less  they  have  a  purpose  or 
profess  to  be  serious,  the  better  they  are ;  and 
the  most  vivacious  of  all  are  two  classical  bur¬ 
lesques,  written  at  a  time  when  that  kind  of 
composition  had  not  yet  become  common  — 
Ixion  in  Heaven  and  The  Infernal  Marriage 
—  little  pieces  of  funning  worthy  of  Thackeray, 
I  had  almost  said  of  Voltaire.  They  recall, 
perhaps  they  were  suggested  by,  similar  pieces 
of  Lucian’s.  Is  Semitic  genius  specially  rich  in 
this  mocking  vein  ?  Lucian  was  a  Syrian  from 
Samosata,  probably  a  Semite;  Heinrich  Heine 
was  a  Semite ;  James  Russell  Lowell  used  to 
insist,  though  he  produced  little  evidence  for  his 
belief,  that  Voltaire  was  a  Semite. 

Whether  Disraeli  could  ever  have  taken  high 
rank  as  a  novelist  if  he  had  thrown  himself  com¬ 
pletely  into  the  profession  may  be  doubted,  for  his 
defects  were  such  as  pains  and  practice  would 
hardly  have  lessened.  That  he  had  still  less  the 
imagination  needed  by  a  poet,  his  Revolutionary 
Epick  conceived  on  the  plains  of  Troy,  and  meant 
to  make  a  fourth  to  the  Iliad ,  the  Alneid \  and  the 
Divina  Commedia ,  is  enough  to  show.  The  literary 
vocation  he  was  best  fitted  for  was  that  of  a 
journalist  or  pamphleteer ;  and  in  this  he  might 
have  won  unrivalled  success.  His  dash,  his 
verve,  his  brilliancy  of  illustration,  his  scorching 
satire,  would  have  made  the  fortune  of  any  news¬ 
paper,  and  carried  dismay  into  the  enemy’s  ranks. 


46  Biographical  Studies 

In  inquiring  how  far  the  gifts  I  have  sought  to 
describe  qualified  Disraeli  for  practical  statesman¬ 
ship,  it  is  well  to  distinguish  the  different  kinds 
of  capacity  which  an  English  politician  needs  to 
attain  the  highest  place.  They  may  be  said  to 
be  four.  He  must  be  a  debater.  He  must  be  a 
parliamentary  tactician.  He  must  understand  the 
country.  He  must  understand  Europe.  This  last 
is,  indeed,  not  always  necessary ;  there  have  been 
moments  when  England,  leaving  Europe  to  itself, 
may  look  to  her  own  affairs  only ;  but  when  the 
sky  grows  stormy  over  Europe,  the  want  of  know¬ 
ledge  which  English  statesmen  sometimes  evince 
may  bode  disaster. 

An  orator,  in  the  highest  sense  of  the  word, 
Disraeli  never  was.  He  lacked  ease  and  fluency. 
He  had  not  Pitt’s  turn  for  the  lucid  exposition  of 
complicated  facts,  nor  for  the  conduct  of  a  close 
argument.  The  sustained  and  fiery  declamation  of 
Fox  was  equally  beyond  his  range.  And  least  of 
all  had  he  that  truest  index  of  eloquence,  the  power 
of  touching  the  emotions.  He  could  not  make  his 
hearers  weep.  But  he  could  make  them  laugh ; 
he  could  put  them  in  good-humour  with  them¬ 
selves  ;  he  could  dazzle  them  with  rhetoric ;  he 
could  pour  upon  an  opponent  streams  of  ridi¬ 
cule  more  effective  than  the  hottest  indignation. 
When  he  sought  to  be  profound  or  solemn,  he 
was  usually  heavy  and  laboured  —  the  sublimity 
often  false,  the  diction  often  stilted.  For  wealth 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


47 


of  thought  or  splendour  of  language  his  speeches 
will  not  bear  to  be  compared  —  I  will  not  say  with 
those  of  Burke  (on  whom  he  sometimes  tried  to 
model  himself),  but  with  those  of  three  or  four  of 
his  own  contemporaries.  Even  within  his  own 
party,  Lord  Derby,  Lord  Ellenborough,  and  Lord 
Cairns  in  their  several  ways  surpassed  him.  There 
is  not  one  of  his  longer  and  more  finished  harangues 
which  can  be  read  with  interest  from  beginning  to 
end.  But  there  is  hardly  any  among  them  which 
does  not  contain  some  striking  passage,  some 
image  or  epigram,  or  burst  of  sarcasm,  which 
must  have  been  exceedingly  effective  when  de¬ 
livered.  It  is  partly  upon  these  isolated  passages, 
especially  the  sarcastic  ones  (though  the  witticisms 
were  sometimes  borrowed),  and  still  more  upon 
the  aptness  of  the  speech  to  the  circumstances 
under  which  it  was  made,  that  his  parliamentary 
fame  rests.  If  he  was  not  a  great  orator  he  was 
a  superb  debater,  who  watched  with  the  utmost 
care  the  temper  of  the  audience,  and  said  just 
what  was  needed  at  the  moment  to  disconcert  an 
opponent  or  to  put  heart  into  his  friends.  His 
repartees  were  often  happy,  and  must  sometimes 
have  been  unpremeditated.  As  he  had  not  the 
ardent  temperament  of  the  born  orator,  so  neither 
had  he  the  external  advantages  which  count  for 
much  before  large  assemblies.  His  voice  was 
not  remarkable  either  for  range  or  for  quality. 
His  manner  was  somewhat  stiff,  his  gestures  few, 


48  Biographical  Studies 

his  countenance  inexpressive.  Yet  his  delivery 
was  not  wanting  in  skill,  and  often  added  point, 
by  its  cool  unconcern,  to  a  stinging  epigram. 

What  he  lacked  in  eloquence  he  made  up 
for  by  tactical  adroitness.  No  more  consum¬ 
mate  parliamentary  strategist  has  been  seen  in 
England.  He  had  studiedffie  House  of  Commons 
till  he  knew  it  as  a~  playeTdcnowsHns  instrument 
—  studied  it  collectively,  for  it  has  a  collective 
character,  and  studied  the  men  who  compose 
it :  their  worse  rather  than  their  better  side, 
their  prejudices,  their  foibles,  their  vanities, 
their  ambitions,  their  jealousies,  above  all,  that 
curious  corporate  pride  which  they  have,  and 
which  makes  them  resent  any  approach  to  dicta¬ 
tion.  He  could  play  on  every  one  of  these 
strings,  and  yet  so  as  to  conceal  his  skill ;  and  he 
so  economised  himself  as  to  make  them  always 
wish  to  hear  him.  He  knew  how  in  a  body  of 
men  obliged  to  listen  to  talk,  and  most  of  it 
tedious  talk,  about  matters  in  themselves  mostly 
uninteresting,  the  desire  for  a  little  amusement 
becomes  almost  a  passion ;  and  he  humoured 
this  desire  so  far  as  occasionally  to  err  by 
excess  of  banter  and  flippancy.  Almost  always 
respectful  to  the  House,  he  had  a  happy 
knack  of  appearing  to  follow  rather  than  to 
lead,  and  when  he  made  an  official  statement 
it  was  with  the  air  of  one  who  was  taking 
them  into  his  confidence.  Much  of  this  he 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


49 


may  have  learned  from  observing  Lord  Palmer¬ 
ston  ;  but  the  art  came  more  naturally  to  that 
statesman,  who  was  an  Englishman  all  through, 
than  to  a  man  of  Mr.  Disraeli’s  origin,  who 
looked  on  Englishmen  from  outside,  and  never 
felt  himself,  so  to  speak,  responsible  for  their 
habits  or  ideas. 

As  leader  of  his  party  in  opposition,  he  was 
at  once  daring  and  cautious.  He  never  feared 
to  give  battle,  even  when  he  expected  defeat, 
if  he  deemed  it  necessary,  with  a  view  to  the 
future,  that  the  judgment  of  his  party  should 
have  been  pronounced  in  a  formal  way.  On 
the  other  hand,  he  was  wary  of  committing  him¬ 
self  to  a  policy  of  blind  or  obstinate  resistance. 
When  he  perceived  that  the  time  had  come  to 
yield,  he  knew  how  to  yield  with  a  good  grace, 
so  as  both  to  support  a  character  for  reason¬ 
ableness  and  to  obtain  valuable  concessions  as 
the  price  of  peace.  If  difficulties  arose  with 
foreign  countries  he  claimed  full  liberty  of 
criticising  the  conduct  of  the  Ministry,  but 
ostentatiously  abstained  from  obstructing  or 
thwarting  their  acts,  declaring  that  England  must 
always  present  a  united  front  to  the  foreigner, 
whatever  penalties  she  might  afterwards  visit 
on  those  who  had  mismanaged  her  concerns. 
As  regards  the  inner  discipline  of  his  party, 
he  had  enormous  difficulties  to  surmount  in  the 
jealousy  which  many  Tories  felt  for  him  as  a 


50  Biographical  Studies 

new  man,  a  man  whom  they  could  not  under¬ 
stand  and  only  partially  trusted.1  Conspiracies 
were  repeatedly  formed  against  him ;  malcontents 
attacked  him  in  the  press,  and  sometimes  even  in 
Parliament.  These  he  seldom  noticed,  maintain¬ 
ing  a  cool  and  self-confident  demeanour  which 
disheartened  the  plotters,  and  discharging  the 
duties  of  his  post  with  steady  assiduity.  He 
was  always  on  the  look-out  for  young  men  of 
promise,  drew  them  towards  him,  encouraged 
them  to  help  him  in  parliamentary  sharp-shoot¬ 
ing,  and  fostered  in  every  way  the  spirit  of  party. 
The  bad  side  of  that  spirit  was  seen  when  he 
came  into  office,  for  then  every  post  in  the 
public  service  was  bestowed  either  by  mere 
favouritism  or  on  party  grounds ;  and  men  who 
had  been  loyal  to  him  were  rewarded  by  places 
or  titles  to  which  they  had  no  other  claim. 
But  the  unity  and  martial  fervour  of  the  Tory 
party  was  raised  to  the  highest  point.  Nor  was 
Disraeli  himself  personally  unpopular  with  his 
parliamentary  opponents,  even  when  he  was  most 
hotly  attacked  on  the  platform  and  in  the  press. 

To  know  England  and  watch  the  shifting 

1  In  the  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck  (written  shortly  after  Peel’s 
death),  Disraeli,  after  dilating  upon  the  loyalty  which  the  Tory  aristocracy 
had  displayed  towards  Peel,  observes,  “  An  aristocracy  hesitates  before  it 
yields  its  confidence,  but  it  never  does  so  grudgingly.  ...  In  political 
connections  the  social  feeling  mingles  with  the  principle  of  honour  which 
governs  gentlemen.  .  .  .  Such  a  following  is  usually  cordial  and  faithful. 
An  aristocracy  is  rather  apt  to  exaggerate  the  qualities  and  magnify  the 
importance  of  a  plebeian  leader.” 


Lord  Beaconsfield  5  1 

currents  of  its  opinion  is  a  very  different  matter 
from  knowing  the  House  of  Commons.  Indeed, 
the  two  kinds  of  knowledge  are  in  a  measure 
incompatible.  Men  who  enter  Parliament  soon 
begin  to  forget  that  it  is  not,  in  the  last  resort, 
Parliament  that  governs,  but  the  people.  Ab¬ 
sorbed  in  the  daily  contests  of  their  Chamber, 
they  over-estimate  the  importance  of  those  con¬ 
tests.  They  come  to  think  that  Parliament  is 
in  fact  what  it  is  in  theory,  a  microcosm  of 
the  nation,  and  that  opinion  inside  is  sure  to 
reflect  the  opinion  outside.  When  they  are  in  a 
minority  they  are  depressed  ;  when  they  are  in 
a  majority  they  fancy  that  all  is  well,  forgetting 
their  masters  out-of-doors.  This  tendency  is 
aggravated  by  the  fact  that  the  English  Parlia¬ 
ment  meets  in  the  capital,  where  the  rich  and 
luxurious  congregate  and  give  their  tone  to 
society.  The  House  of  Commons,  though  many 
of  its  members  belong  to  the  middle  class  by 
origin,  belongs  practically  to  the  upper  class  by 
sympathy,  and  is  prone  to  believe  that  what  it 
hears  every  evening  at  dinners  or  receptions  is 
what  the  country  is  thinking.  A  member  of  the 
House  of  Commons  is,  therefore,  ill-placed  for 
feeling  the  pulse  of  the  nation,  and  in  order  to 
do  so  must  know  what  is  being  said  over  the 
country,  and  must  frequently  visit  or  communi¬ 
cate  with  his  constituents.  If  this  difficulty  is 
experienced  by  an  ordinary  private  member,  it 


52  Biographical  Studies 

is  greater  for  a  minister  whose  time  is  filled 
by  official  duties,  or  for  a  leader  of  opposition, 
who  has  to  be  constantly  thinking  of  his  tactics 
in  the  House.  In  Disraeli’s  case  there  was  a 
keenness  of  observation  and  discernment  far 
beyond  the  common.  But  he  was  under  the 
disadvantages  of  not  being  really  an  Englishman, 
and  of  having  never  lived  among  the  people.1 
The  detachment  I  have  already  referred  to  tended 
to  weaken  his  power  of  judging  popular  sentiment, 
and  appraising  at  their  true  value  the  various 
tendencies  that  sway  and  divide  a  nation  so 
complex  as  the  English.  Early  in  life  he  had 
formed  theories  about  the  relations  of  the  differ¬ 
ent  classes  of  English  society  —  nobility,  gentry, 
capitalists,  workmen,  peasantry,  and  the  middle 
classes  —  theories  which  were  far  from  containing 
the  whole  truth;  and  he  adhered  to  them  even 
when  the  changes  of  half  a  century  had  made  them 
less  true.  He  had  a  great  aversion,  not  to  say  con¬ 
tempt,  for  Puritanism,  and  for  the  Dissenters  among 
whom  it  chiefly  holds  itsground,andpleased  himself 
with  the  notion  that  the  extension  of  the  suffrage 
which  he  carried  in  1867  had  destroyed  their 
political  power.  The  Conservative  victory  at  the 
election  of  1874  confirmed  him  in  this  belief,  and 
made  him  also  think  that  the  working  classes 
were  ready  to  follow  the  lead  of  the  rich.  He 

1  When  he  did  set  himself  to  examine  the  condition  of  the  people,  the 
diagnosis,  if  not  always  correct,  was  always  suggestive,  eg.  the  account  of 
the  manufacturing  districts  given  in  Sybil,  or  the  Two  Nations. 


Lord  Beaconsfield  53 

perceived  that  the  Liberal  ministry  of  1868-74 
had  offended  certain  in^uential  sections  by  appear¬ 
ing  too  demiss  or  too  unenterprising  in  foreign 
gffairs,  and  fancied  That  the  bulk  of  the  nation 
would  be  dazzled  by  a  warlike  mien,  and  an 
active,  even  aggressive,  foreign  policy.  Such  a 
policy  was  congenial  to  his  own  ideas,  and  to 
the  society  that  surrounded  him.  It  was  ap¬ 
plauded  by  some  largely  circulated  newspapers 
which  had  previously  been  unfriendly  to  the 
Tory  party.  Thus  he  was  more  surprised  than 
any  other  man  of  similar  experience  to  find  the 
nation  sending  up  a  larger  majority  against  him 
in  1880  than  it  had  sent  up  for  him  in  1874. 
This  was  the  most  striking  instance  of  his  mis¬ 
calculation.  But  he  had  all  through  his  career 
an  imperfect  comprehension  of  the  English 
people.  Individuals,  or  even  an  assembly,  may 
be  understood  by  dint  of  close  and  long-continued 
observation ;  but  to  understand  a  whole  nation, 
one  must  also  have  sympathy,  and  this  his  circum¬ 
stances,  not  less  than  his  character,  had  denied  him. 

It  was  partly  the  same  defect  that  prevented 
him  from  mastering  the  general  politics  of  Europe. 
There  is  a  sense  in  which  no  single  man  can 
pretend  to  understand  Europe.  Bismarck  him¬ 
self  did  not.  The  problem  is  too  vast,  the  facts 
to  be  known  too  numerous,  the  undercurrents 
too  varying.  One  can  speak  only  of  more  or 
less.  If  Europe  had  been  in  his  time  what  it 


54  V  Biographical  Studies 

was  a  century  before,  Disraeli  would  have  had 
a  far  better  chance  of  being  fit  to  become  what 
it  was  probably  his  dearest  wish  to  become  —  its 
guide  and  arbiter.  He  would  have  taken  the 
measure  of  the  princes  and  ministers  with  whom 
he  had  to  deal,  would  have  seen  and  adroitly 
played  on  their  weaknesses.  His  novels  show 
how  often  he  had  revolved  diplomatic  situations 
in  his  mind,  and  reflected  on  the  way  of  handling 
them.  Foreign  diplomatists  are  agreed  that  at 
the  Congress  of  Berlin  he  played  his  part  to 
admiration,  spoke  seldom,  but  spoke  always  to 
the  point  and  with  dignity,  had  a  perfect  concep¬ 
tion  of  what  he  meant  to  secure,  and  of  the 
means  he  must  employ  to  secure  it,  never  haggled 
over  details  or  betrayed  any  eagerness  to  win 
support,  never  wavered  in  his  demands,  even 
when  they  seemed  to  lead  straight  to  war.  Deal¬ 
ing  with  individuals,  who  represented  material 
forces  which  he  had  gauged,  he  was  perfectly  at 
home,  and  deserved  the  praise  he  obtained  from 
Bismarck,  who,  comparing  him  with  other  eminent 
figures  at  the  Congress,  is  reported  to  have  said, 
bluntly  but  heartily,  “  Der  alte  Jude,  das  ist  der 
Mann.”1  But  to  know  what  the  condition  of 
South-Eastern  Europe  really  was,  and  understand 
how  best  to  settle  its  troubles,  was  a  far  more  diffi¬ 
cult  task,  and  Disraeli  possessed  neither  the  know¬ 
ledge  nor  the  insight  required.  In  the  Europe 

1  “The  old  Jew,  that  is  the  man.” 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


of  to-day,  peoples  count  for  more  than  the  wills 
of  individual  rulers:  one  must  comprehend  the 
passions  and  sympathies  of  peoples  if  one  is  to 
forecast  the  future.  This  he  seldom  cared  to 
do.  He  did  not  realise  the  part  and  the  power 
of  moral  forces.  Down  till  the  outbreak  of  the 
American  Civil  War  he  maintained  that  the 
question  between  the  North  and  the  South  was 
mainly  a  fiscal  question  between  the  Protectionist 
interests  of  the  one  and  the  Free  Trade  interests 
of  the  other.  He  always  treated  with  contempt 
the  national  movement  in  Italy.  He  made  no 
secret  in  the  days  before  1859  of  his  good-will 
to  Austria  and  of  his  liking  for  Louis  Napoleon  — 
a  man  inferior  to  him  in  ability  and  in  courage, 
but  to  whose  character  his  own  had  some  affinities. 
In  that  elaborate  study  of  Sir  Robert  Peel’s  char¬ 
acter,1  which  is  one  of  Disraeli’s  best  literary  per¬ 
formances,  he  observes  that  Peel  “  was  destitute 
of  imagination,  and  wanting  imagination  he  wanted 
prescience.”  True  it  is  that  imagination  is  neces¬ 
sary  for  prescience,  but  imagination  is  not  enough 
to  give  prescience.  It  may  even  be  a  snare. 

Disraeli’s  imagination,  his  fondness  for  theories, 
and  disposition  rather  to  cling  to  them  than  to 
study  and  interpret  facts,  made  him  the  victim 
of  his  own  preconceived  ideas,  as  his  indolence 
deterred  him  from  following  the  march  of  change 
and  noting  how  different  things  were  in  the 

1  In  the  Life  of  Lord  George  Bentinck. 


Biographical  Studies 

seventies  from  what  they  had  been  in  the 
thirties.  Mr.  Gladstone  said  to  me  in  1876, 
“  Disraeli’s  two  leading  ideas  in  foreign  policy 
have  always  been  the  maintenanee^jol  the  temporal 
power  of  the  Pope,  and  the  maintenance  of  the 
power  of  the  Sultan.”  Unable  to  save  the  one,  he 
clung  to  the  hope  of  saving  the  other.  He  was 
possessed  by  the  notion,  seductive  to  a  dreamy 
mind,  that  all  the  disturbances  of  Europe  arose 
from  the  action  of  secret  societies ;  and  when  the 
Eastern  Question  was  in  1875  re-opened  by  the 
insurrection  in  Herzegovina,  followed  by  the 
war  of  Servia  against  the  Turks,  he  explained 
the  event  in  a  famous  speech  by  saying,  “  The 
secret  societies  of  Europe  have  declared  war 
against  Turkey  ”  —  the  fact  being  that  the  societies 
which  in  Russia  were  promoting  the  Servian  war 
were  public  societies,  openly  collecting  subscrip¬ 
tions,  while  those  secret  “  social  democratic  ” 
societies  of  which  we  have  since  heard  so  much 
were  strongly  opposed  to  the  interference  of 
Russia,  and  those  other  secret  societies  in  the 
rest  of  Europe,  wherein  Poles  and  Italians  have 
played  a  leading  part,  were,  if  not  hostile,  at  any 
rate  quite  indifferent  to  the  movement  among  the 
Eastern  Christians. 

Against  these  errors  there  must  be  set  several 
cases  in  which  he  showed  profound  discernment. 
In  1843  and  1844  he  delivered,  in  debates  on  the 
condition  of  Ireland,  speeches  which  then  con- 


Lord  Beaconsfield 

stituted  and  long  remained  the  most  penetrating 
and  concise  diagnosis  of  the  troubles  of  that  coun¬ 
try  ever  addressed  to  Parliament.  Ireland  has,  he 
said,  a  starving  peasantry,  an  alien  church,  and  an 
absentee  aristocracy,  and  he  went  on  to  add  that 
the  function  of  statesmanship  was  to  cure  by  peace¬ 
ful  and  constitutional  methods  ills  which  in  other 
countries  had  usually  induced,  and  been  removed 
by,  revolution.  During  the  American  Civil  War  of 
1861-65,  Disraeli  was  the  only  leading  statesman 
on  his  own  side  of  politics  who  did  not, embrace 
and  applaud  the  cause  of  the  South.  Whether  this 
arose  from  a  caution  that  would  not  commit  itself 
where  it  recognised  ignorance,  or  from  a  percep¬ 
tion  of  the  superior  strength  of  the  Northern 
States  (a  perception  which  whoever  visits  the 
South  even  to-day  is  astonished  that  so  few 
people  in  Europe  should  have  had),  it  is  not  easy 
to  decide ;  but  whatever  the  cause,  the  fact  is  an 
evidence  of  his  prudence  or  sagacity  all  the  more 
weighty  because  Lord  Palmerston,  Lord  Russell, 
and  Mr.  Gladstone,  as  well  as  Lord  Derby  and 
Sir  Hugh  Cairns,  had  each  of  them  expressed 
more  or  less  sympathy  with,  or  belief  in,  the 
success  of  the  Southern  cause. 

The  most  striking  instance,  however,  of  Dis¬ 
raeli’s  insight  was  his  perception  that  an  exten¬ 
sion  of  the  suffrage  would  not  necessarily  injure, 
and  might  end  by  strengthening,  the  Tory  party. 
The  Act  of  1867  was  described  at  the  time  as 


Biographical  Studies 


“  a  leap  in  the  dark.”  But  Disraeli’s  eyes  had 
pierced  the  darkness.  For  half  a  century  poli¬ 
ticians  had  assumed  that  the  masses  of  the  people 
were  and  would  remain  under  the  Liberal  banner. 
Even  as  late  as  1872  it  was  thought  on  Liberal 
platforms  a  good  joke  to  say  of  some  opinion  that 
it  might  do  for  Conservative  working  men,  if  there 
were  any.  Disraeli  had,  long  before  1867,  seen 
deeper,  and  though  his  youthful  fancies  that  the 
monarchy  might  be  revived  as  an  effective  force, 
and  that  “  the  peasantry  ”  would  follow  with 
mediaeval  reverence  the  lead  of  the  landed  gentry, 
proved  illusory,  he  was  right  in  discerning  that 
wealth  and  social  influence  would  in  parliamentary 
elections  count  for  more  among  the  masses  than 
the  traditions  of  constitutional  Whiggism  or  the 
dogmas  of  abstract  Radicalism. 


In  estimating  his  statesmanship  as  a  whole, 
one  must  give  due  weight  to  the  fact  that  it 
impressed  many  publicists  abroad.  No  English 
minister  had  for  a  long  time  past  so  fascinated 
observers  in  Germany  and  Austria.  Supposing 
that  under  the  long  reign  of  Liberalism  English¬ 
men  had  ceased  to  care  for  foreign  politics,  they 
looked  on  him  as  the  man  who  had  given  back  to 
Britain  her  old  European  position,  and  attributed 
to  him  a  breadth  of  design,  a  grasp  and  a  fore¬ 
sight  such  as  men  had  revered  in  Lord  Chatham, 
greatest  in  the  short  list  of  ministers  who  have 
raised  the  fame  of  England  abroad.  I  remember 


Lord  Beaconsfield 


59 

seeing  in  a  Conservative  club,  about  1880,  a 
large  photograph  of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  wearing 
the  well-known  look  of  mysterious  fixity,  under 
which  is  inscribed  the  line  of  Homer:  “  He  alone 
is  wise:  the  rest  are  fleeting  shadows.”1  It 
was  a  happy  idea  to  go  for  a  motto  to  the 
favourite  poet  of  his  rival,  as  it  was  an  un¬ 
happy  chance  to  associate  the  wisdom  ascribed 
to  Disraeli  with  his  policy  in  the  Turkish  East 
and  in  Afghanistan,  a  policy  now  universally  ad¬ 
mitted  to  have  been  unwise  and  unfortunate.2 
But  whatever  may  be  thought  of  the  appropriate¬ 
ness  of  the  motto,  the  fact  remains  that  this  was 
the  belief  he  succeeded  in  inspiring.  He  did  it 
by  virtue  of  those  very  gifts  which  sometimes 
brought  him  into  trouble  —  his  taste  for  large  and 
imposing  theories,  his  power  of  clothing  them  in 
vague  and  solemn  language,  his  persistent  faith  in 
them.  He  came,  by  long  posing,  to  impose  upon 
himself  and  to  believe  in  his  own  profundity. 
Few  people  could  judge  whether  his  ideas  of 
imperial  policy  were  sound  and  feasible ;  but 
every  one  saw  that  he  had  theories,  and  many 
fell  under  the  spell  which  a  grandiose  imagination 
can  exercise.  It  is  chiefly  this  gift,  coupled  with 

1  Olifi  ircirvvtrOat,  toJ  ckio.1  alacrovmv  ( Od x.  495).  Used  of  Tiresias, 
in  the  world  of  disembodied  spirits. 

2  To  defend  Disraeli  by  arguing  that  his  policy  had  not  a  fair  chance 
because  his  colleagues  did  not  allow  him  to  carry  it  through  is  to  admit 
another  error  not  less  grave,  for  the  path  he  took  was  one  on  which  no 
minister  ought  to  have  entered  unless  satisfied  that  the  Cabinet  and  the 
country  would  let  him  follow  it  to  the  end. 


60  Biographicai  Studies 

his  indomitable  tenacity,  which  lifts  him  out  of 
the  line  of  mere  party  leaders.  If  he  failed  to  see 
how  much  the  English  are  sometimes  moved  by 
compassion,  he  did  see  that  it  may  be  worth  while 
to  play  to  their  imagination. 

We  may  now  ask  again  the  question  asked  at 
first:  How  did  a  man,  whatever  his  natural  gifts, 
who  was  weighted  in  his  course  by  such  disadvan¬ 
tages  as  Disraeli’s,  by  his  Jewish  origin,  by  the 
escapades  of  his  early  career,  by  the  want  of  confi¬ 
dence  which  his  habitual  cynicism  inspired,  by  the 
visionary  nature  of  so  many  of  his  views, — how  did 
he,  in  a  conservative  and  aristocratic  country  like 
England,  triumph  over  so  many  prejudices  and 
enmities,  and  raise  himself  to  be  the  head  of  the 
Conservative  and  aristocratic  party,  the  trusted 
counsellor  of  the  Crown,  the  ruler,  almost  the 
dictator,  of  a  free  people? 

However  high  be  the  estimate  formed  of 
Disraeli’s  gifts,  secondary  causes  must  have  been 
at  work  to  enable  him  to  overcome  the  obstacles 
that  blocked  his  path.  The  ancients  were  not 
wrong  in  ascribing  to  Fortune  a  great  share  in 
human  affairs.  Now,  among  the  secondary  causes 
of  success,  that  “  general  minister  and  leader  set 
over  worldly  splendours,”  as  Dante  calls  her,1 
played  no  insignificant  part.  One  of  these  causes 
lay  in  the  nature  of  the  party  to  which  he  belonged. 
The  Tory  party  of  the  years  between  1848  and 

1  Inf  vii.  77. 


Lord  Beaconsfield  6 1 

1865  contained  a  comparatively  small  number  of 
able  men.  When  J.  S.  Mill  once  called  it  the 
stupid  party,  it  did  not  repudiate  the  name,  but 
pointed  to  its  cohesion  and  its  resolution  as 
showing  how  many  things  besides  mere  talent 
go  to  make  political  greatness.  A  man  of 
shining  gifts  had  within  its  ranks  few  com¬ 
petitors;  and  this  was  signally  the  case  im¬ 
mediately  after  Peel’s  defection.  That  statesman 
had  carried  off  with  him  the  intellectual  flower 
of  the  Conservatives.  Those  who  were  left 
behind  to  form  the  Protectionist  Opposition  in 
the  House  of  Commons  were  broad-acred  squires, 
of  solid  character  but  slender  capacity.  Through 
this  heavy  atmosphere  Mr.  Disraeli  rose  like  a 
balloon.  Being  practically  the  only  member  of 
his  party  in  the  Commons  with  either  strategical 
or  debating  power,  he  became  indispensable,  and 
soon  established  a  supremacy  which  years  of 
patient  labour  might  not  have  given  him  in  a 
rivalry  with  the  distinguished  band  who  sur¬ 
rounded  Peel.  During  the  twenty  years  that 
followed  the  great  Tory  schism  of  1846  no 
man  arose  in  the  Tory  ranks  capable  of  dis¬ 
puting  his  throne.  The  conspiracies  hatched 
against  him  might  well  have  prospered  could  a 
candidate  for  the  leadership  have  been  found 
capable  of  crossing  swords  with  the  chieftain  in 
possession.  Fortune,  true  to  her  nursling,  suffered 
none  such  to  appear. 


62  Biographical  Studies 

Another  favouring  influence  not  understood 
outside  England  was  to  be  found  in  the  character 
of  the  party  he  led.  In  his  day  the  Tories,  being 
the  party  of  the  property-holders,  and  having  not 
to  advance  but  to  stand  still,  not  to  propose 
changes  but  to  resist  them,  having  bonds  of 
interest  as  well  as  of  sentiment  to  draw  them 
close  together,  possessed  a  cohesion,  a  loyalty 
to  their  chiefs,  a  tenacious  corporate  spirit,  far 
exceeding  what  was  to  be  found  among  their  ad¬ 
versaries,  who  were  usually  divided  into  a  moder¬ 
ate  or  Whig  and  an  advanced  or  Radical  section. 
He  who  established  himself  as  the  Tory  leader 
was  presently  followed  by  the  rank  and  file  with 
a  devotion,  an  unquestioning  submission  and  con¬ 
fidence,  which  placed  his  character  and  doctrines 
under  the  aegis  of  the  party,  and  enforced  loyalty 
upon  parliamentary  malcontents.  This  corporate 
spirit  was  of  infinite  value  to  Disraeli.  The 
historical  past  of  the  great  Tory  party,  its  associa¬ 
tions,  the  social  consideration  which  it  enjoys,  all 
went  to  ennoble  his  position  and  efface  the  remem¬ 
brance  of  the  less  creditable  parts  of  his  career. 
And  in  the  later  days  of  his  reign,  when  no  one 
disputed  his  supremacy,  every  Tory  was,  as  a 
matter  of  course,  his  advocate  and  admirer,  and 
resented  assaults  on  him  as  insults  to  the  party. 
When  a  man  excites  hatred  by  his  words  or  deeds, 
attacks  on  his  character  are  an  inevitable  relief  to 
overcharged  feelings.  Technically  regarded,  they 


Lord  Beaconsfield  63 

are  not  good  politics.  Misrepresentation  some¬ 
times  succeeds ;  vituperation  seldom.  Let  a  man 
be  personally  untrustworthy  or  dangerous,  still,  it 
is  only  his  own  words  that  damage  him,  at  least  in 
England  and  America.  Even  his  own  words,  how¬ 
ever  discrediting,  even  his  acts,  however  culpable, 
may,  if  they  belong  to  a  past  unfamiliar  to  the  voter 
of  to-day,  tell  little,  perhaps  too  little,  on  the  voter’s 
mind  when  they  are  brought  up  against  him.  The 
average  citizen  has  a  short  memory,  and  thinks 
that  the  dead  may  be  allowed  to  bury  their  dead. 

Let  it  be  further  noted  that  Disraeli’s  career 
coincided  with  a  significant  change  in  English 
politics,  a  change  partly  in  the  temper  of  the  nation, 
partly  in  the  balance  of  voting  power.  For  thirty 
years  after  the  Reform  Act  of  1832,  not  only  had 
the  middle  classes  constituted  the  majority  of 
the  electors,  but  the  social  influence  of  the  great 
Whig  families  and  the  intellectual  influence  of 
the  economic  school  of  Cobden  had  been  potent 
factors.  These  forces  were,  in  the  later  part  of 
Disraeli’s  life,  tending  to  decline.  The  working- 
class  vote  was  vastly  increased  in  1867.  The 
old  Whig  light  gradually  paled,  and  many  of  the 
Whig  magnates,  obeying  class  sympathies  rather 
than  party  traditions,  drifted  slowly  into  Toryism. 
A  generation  arose  which  had  not  seen  the  Free 
Trade  struggle,  or  had  forgotten  the  Free  Trade 
arguments,  and  which  was  attracted  by  ideals  other 
than  those  which  Cobden  had  preached.  The 


64  Biographical  Studies 

grievances  which  had  made  men  reformers  had 
been  largely  removed.  The  battle  of  liberty  and 
nationality  in  Continental  Europe  had  been  in 
the  main  won,  and  Englishmen  had  lost  the 
enthusiasm  for  freedom  which  had  fired  them  in 
the  days  when  the  memory  of  their  own  struggle 
against  the  Crown  and  the  oligarchy  was  still 
fresh.  With  none  of  these  changes  had  Disraeli’s 
personal  action  much  to  do,  but  they  all  enured 
to  the  benefit  of  his  party,  they  all  swelled  the 
tide  which  bore  him  into  office  in  1874. 

Finally,  he  had  the  great  advantage  of  living 
long.  Many  a  statesman  has  died  at  fifty, 
and  passed  from  the  world’s  memory,  who  might 
have  become  a  figure  in  history  with  twenty  years 
more  of  life.  Had  Disraeli’s  career  closed  in 
1854,  he  would  have  been  remembered  as  a 
parliamentary  gladiator,  who  had  produced  a  few 
incisive  speeches,  a  crude  Budget,  and  some 
brilliant  social  and  political  sketches.  The 
stronger  parts  of  his  character  might  have  re¬ 
mained  unknown.  True  it  is  that  a  man  must 
have  greatness  in  order  to  stand  the  test  of  long 
life.  Some  are  found  out,  like  Louis  Napoleon. 
Some  lose  their  balance  and  therewith  their 
influence,  like  Lord  Brougham.  Some  cease  to 
grow  or  learn,  and  if  a  statesman  is  not  better 
at  sixty  than  he  was  at  thirty,  he  is  worse. 
Some  jog  heavily  on,  like  Metternich,  or  stiffen 
into  arbitrary  doctrinaires,  like  Guizot.  Disraeli 


Lord  Beaconsfield  65 

did  not  merely  stand  the  test,  he  gained  im¬ 
mensely  by  it.  He  gained  by  rising  into  a 
position  where  his  strength  could  show  itself. 
He  gained  also  by  so  impressing  his  individuality 
upon  people  as  to  make  them  accept  it  as  an 
ultimate  fact,  till  at  length  they  came,  not  so  much 
to  blame  him  for  what  he  did  in  accord  with  his 
established  reputation,  as  rather  to  relish  and 
enter  into  the  humour  of  his  character.  As  they 
unconsciously  took  to  judging  him  by  a  standard 
different  from  that  which  they  applied  to  ordinary 
Englishmen,  they  hardly  complained  of  deflections 
from  veracity  which  would  have  seemed  grave 
in  other  persons.  He  had  given  notice  that 
he  was  not  like  other  men,  that  his  words  must 
not  be  taken  in  their  natural  sense,  that  he  -was 
to  be  regarded  as  the  skilful  player  of  a  great 
game,  the  consummate  actor  in  a  great  part. 
And,  once  more,  he  gained  by  the  many  years 
during  which  he  had  opportunities  of  displaying 
his  fortitude,  patience,  constancy  under  defeat, 
unwavering  self-confidence  —  gifts  rarer  than  mere 
intellectual  power,  gifts  that  deserve  the  influence 
they  bestow.  Nothing  so  fascinates  mankind  as 
to  see  a  man  equal  to  every  fortune,  unshaken 
by  reverses,  indifferent  to  personal  abuse,  main¬ 
taining  a  long  combat  against  apparently  hopeless 
odds  with  the  sharpest  weapons  and  a  smiling 
face.  His  followers  fancy  he  must  have  hidden 
resources  of  wisdom  as  well  as  of  courage.  When 


66 


Biographical  Studies 

some  of  his  predictions  come  true,  and  the 
turning  tide  of  popular  feeling  begins  to  bear 
them  toward  power,  they  believe  that  he  has 
been  all  along  right  and  the  rest  of  the  world 
wrong.  When  victory  at  last  settles  on  his  crest, 
even  his  enemies  can  hardly  help  applauding  a 
reward  which  seems  so  amply  earned.  It  was 
by  this  quality,  more  perhaps  than  by  anything 
else,  by  this  serene  surface  with  fathomless  depths 
below,  that  he  laid  his  spell  upon  the  imagination 
of  observers  in  Continental  Europe,  and  received 
at  his  death  a  sort  of  canonisation  from  a  large 
section  of  the  English  people. 

What  will  posterity  think  of  him,  and  by 
what  will  he  be  remembered  ?  The  glamour  has 
already  passed  away,  and  to  few  of  those  who  on 
the  19th  of  April  deck  his  statue  with  flowers 
is  he  more  than  a  name. 

Parliamentary  fame  is  fleeting:  the  memory  of 
parliamentary  conflicts  soon  grows  dim  and  dull. 
Posterity  fixes  a  man’s  place  in  history  by  asking 
not  how  many  tongues  buzzed  about  him  in  his 
lifetime,  but  how  great  a  factor  he  was  in  the 
changes  of  the  world,  that  is,  how  far  different 
things  would  have  been  twenty  or  fifty  years 
after  his  death  if  he  had  never  lived.  Tried  by 
this  standard,  the  results  upon  the  course  of  events 
of  Disraeli’s  personal  action  are  not  numerous, 
though  some  of  them  may  be  deemed  momentous. 
He  was  an  adroit  parliamentary  tactician  who 


Lord  Beaconsfield  67 

held  his  followers  together  through  a  difficult 
time.  By  helping  to  keep  the  Peelites  from  re¬ 
joining  their  old  party,  he  gave  that  party  a 
colour  different  from  the  sober  hues  which  it 
had  worn  during  the  leadership  of  Peel.  He 
became  the  founder  of  what  has  in  later  days 
been  called  Tory  democracy,  winning  over  a 
large  section  of  the  humbler  classes  to  the  ban¬ 
ner  under  which  the  majority  of  the  wealthy 
and  the  holders  of  vested  interests  already  stood 
arrayed.  He  saved  for  the  Turkish  Empire  a 
part  of  its  territories,  yet  in  doing  so  merely 
prolonged  for  a  little  the  death  agony  of 
Turkish  power.  Though  it  cannot  be  said 
that  he  conferred  any  benefit  on  India  or  the 
Colonies,  he  certainly  stimulated  the  imperial 
instincts  of  Englishmen.  He  had  occasional 
flashes  of  insight,  as  when  in  1843  he  perceived 
exactly  what  Ireland  needed,  and  at  least  one 
brilliant  flash  of  foresight  when  he  predicted  that 
a  wide  extension  of  the  suffrage  would  bring  no 
evil  to  the  Tory  party.  Yet  in  the  case  of 
Ireland  he  did  nothing,  when  the  chance  came 
to  him,  to  give  effect  to  the  judgment  which  he 
had  formed,  while  in  the  case  of  the  suffrage  he 
did  but  follow  up  and  carry  into  effect  an  impulse 
given  by  others.  The  Franchise  Act  of  1867  is 
perhaps  the  only  part  of  his  policy  which  has, 
by  hastening  a  change  that  induced  other  changes, 
permanently  affected  the  course  of  events;  and 


68 


Biographical  Studies 


it  remains  the  chief  monument  of  his  parlia¬ 


mentary  skill./  There  was  nothing  in  his  career  to 
set  the  example  of  a  lofty  soul  or  a  noble  purpose. 

en  have  lowered, 


Yet  history  will  not  leave  Him  without  a  meed 
of  admiration.  When  all  possible  explanations  of 
his  success  have  been  given,  what  a  wonderful 
career!  An  adventurer  foreign  in  race,  in 
ideas,  in  temper,  without  money  or  family 
connections,  climbs,  by  patient  and  unaided 
efforts,  to  lead  a  great  party,  master  a  powerful 
aristocracy,  sway  a  vast  empire,  and  make  him¬ 
self  one  of  the  four  or  five  greatest  personal 
forces  in  the  world.  His  head  is  not  turned  by 
his  elevation.  He  never  becomes  a  demagogue ; 
he  never  stoops  to  beguile  the  multitude  by 
appealing  to  sordid  instincts.  He  retains  through 
life  a  certain  amplitude  of  view,  a  due  sense  of 
the  dignity  of  his  position,  a  due  regard  for  the 
traditions  of  the  ancient  assembly  which  he  leads, 
and  when  at  last  the  destinies  of  England  fall 
into  his  hands,  he  feels  the  grandeur  of  the 
charge,  and  seeks  to  secure  w'hat  he  believes  to 
be  her  imperial  place  in  the  wrorld.  Whatever 
judgment  history  may  ultimately  pass  upon  him, 
she  will  find  in  the  long  annals  of  the  English 
Parliament  no  more  striking  figure. 


DEAN  STANLEY1 


In  the  England  of  his  time  there  was  no  personality 
more  attractive,  nor  any  more  characteristic  of 
the  country,  than  Arthur  Penrhyn  Stanley,  Dean 
of  Westminster.  England  is  the  only  European 
country  in  which  such  a  figure  could  have  appeared, 
for  it  is  the  only  country  in  which  a  man  may  hold 
a  high  ecclesiastical  post  and  yet  be  regarded 
by  the  nation,  not  specially  as  an  ecclesiastic,  but 
rather  as  a  distinguished  writer,  an  active  and 
influential  man  of  affairs,  an  ornament  of  social 
life.  But  if  in  this  respect  he  was  typical  of  his 
country,  he  was  in  other  respects  unique.  He 
was  a  clergyman  untouched  by  clericalism,  a 
courtier  unspoiled  by  courts.  No  one  could 
point  to  any  one  else  in  England  who  occupied 
a  similar  position,  nor  has  any  one  since  arisen 
who  recalls  him,  or  who  fills  the  place  which  his 
departure  left  empty. 

Stanley  was  born  in  1815.  His  father,  then 
Rector  of  Alderley,  in  Cheshire,  afterwards  Bishop 

1  A  Life  of  Dean  Stanley ,  in  two  volumes,  begun  by  Theodore  Walrond, 
continued  by  Dean  Bradley,  and  completed  by  Mr.  R.  E.  Prothero, 
appeared  in  1893. 


69 


70  Biographical  Studies 

of  Norwich,  belonged  to  the  family  of  the  Stanleys 
of  Alderley,  a  branch  of  that  ancient  and  famous 
line  the  head  of  which  is  Earl  of  Derby.  His 
mother,  Catherine  Leycester,  was  a  woman  of 
much  force  of  character  and  intellectual  power. 
He  was  educated  at  Rugby  School  under  Dr. 
Arnold,  the  influence  of  whose  ideas  remained 
great  over  him  all  through  his  life,  and  at 
Oxford,  where  he  became  a  fellow  and  tutor 
of  University  College.  Passing  thence  to  be 
Canon  of  Canterbury,  he  returned  to  the  Uni¬ 
versity  as  Professor  of  Ecclesiastical  History, 
and  remained  there  for  seven  years.  In  1863 
he  was  appointed  Dean  of  Westminster,  and  at 
the  same  time  married  Lady  Augusta  Bruce 
(sister  of  the  then  Lord  Elgin,  Governor-General 
first  of  Canada  and  afterwards  of  India).  He 
died  in  1881. 

He  had  an  extraordinarily  active  and  busy  life, 
so  intertwined  with  the  history  of  the  University  of 
Oxford  and  the  history  of  the  Church  of  England 
from  1850  to  1880,  that  one  can  hardly  think  of  any 
salient  point  in  either  without  thinking  also  of 
him.  Yet  it  was  perhaps  rather  in  the  intensity 
of  his  nature  and  the  nobility  of  his  sentiments 
than  in  either  the  compass  or  the  strength  of  his 
intellectual  faculties  that  the  charm  and  the  force 
he  exercised  lay.  In  some  directions  he  was 
curiously  deficient.  He  had  no  turn  for  abstract 
reasoning,  no  liking  for  metaphysics  or  any  other 


Dean  Stanley  7  1 

form  of  speculation.  He  was  equally  unfitted 
for  scientific  inquiry,  and  could  scarcely  work  a 
sum  in  arithmetic.  Indeed,  in  no  field  was  he  a 
logical  or  systematic  thinker.  Neither,  although 
he  had  a  retentive  memory,  and  possessed  a 
great  deal  of  various  knowledge  on  many  sub¬ 
jects,  could  he  be  called  learned,  for  he  had 
not  really  mastered  any  branch  of  history,  and 
was  often  inaccurate  in  details.  He  had  never 
been  trained  to  observe  facts  in  natural  history. 
He  had  absolutely  no  ear  for  music,  and  very 
little  perception  either  of  colour  or  of  scent.  He 
learned  foreign  languages  with  difficulty  and  never 
spoke  them  well.  He  was  so  short-sighted  as  to 
be  unable  to  recognise  a  face  passing  close  in  the 
street.  Yet  with  these  shortcomings  he  was  a 
born  traveller,  went  everywhere,  saw  everything 
and  everybody  worth  seeing,  always  seized  on 
the  most  characteristic  features  of  a  landscape,  or 
building,  or  a  person,  and  described  them  with  a 
freshness  which  made  one  feel  as  if  they  had 
never  been  described  before.  Of  the  hundreds 
who  have  published  books  on  the  Desert  of 
Sinai  and  the  Holy  Land,  many  of  them  skilful 
writers  or  men  of  profound  knowledge,  he  is 
the  only  one  who  is  still  read  and  likely  to  con¬ 
tinue  to  be  read,  so  vivid  in  colour,  so  exquisite 
in  feeling,  are  the  pictures  he  has  given.  Nature 
alone,  however,  nature  taken  by  herself,  did  not 
satisfy  him,  did  not,  indeed,  in  his  later  days  (for 


72  Biographical  Studies 

in  his  boyhood  he  had  been  a  passionate  lover  of 
the  mountains)  greatly  interest  him.  A  building 
or  a  landscape  had  power  to  rouse  his  imagina¬ 
tion  and  call  forth  his  unrivalled  powers  of  de¬ 
scription  only  when  it  was  associated  with  the 
thoughts  and  deeds  of  men. 

The  largest  part  of  his  literary  work  was  done 
in  the  field  of  ecclesiastical  history,  a  subject 
naturally  congenial  to  him,  and  to  which  he  was 
further  drawn  by  the  professorship  which  he  held 
at  Oxford  during  a  time  when  a  great  revival  of 
historical  studies  was  in  progress.  It  was  work 
which  critics  could  easily  disparage,  for  there  were 
many  small  errors  scattered  through  it ;  and  the 
picturesque  method  of  treatment  he  employed 
was  apt  to  pass  into  scrappiness.  He  fixed  on 
the  points  which  had  a  special  interest  for  his 
own  mind  as  illustrating  some  trait  of  personal 
or  national  character,  or  some  moral  lesson,  and 
passed  hastily  over  other  matters  of  equal  or 
greater  importance.  Nevertheless  his  work 
had  some  distinctive  merits  which  have  not  re¬ 
ceived  from  professional  critics  the  whole  credit 
they  deserved.  In  all  that  Stanley  wrote  one 
finds  a  certain  largeness  and  dignity  of  view. 
He  had  a  sense  of  the  unity  of  history,  of  the 
constant  relation  of  past  and  present,  of  the  simi¬ 
larity  of  human  nature  in  one  age  and  country  to 
human  nature  in  another;  and  he  never  failed  to 
dwell  upon  the  permanently  valuable  truths  which 


Dean  Stanley  73 

history  has  to  teach.  Nothing  was  too  small  to 
attract  him,  because  he  discovered  a  meaning  in 
everything,  and  he  was  therefore  never  dull, 
for  even  when  he  moralised  he  would  light  up 
his  reflections  by  some  happy  anecdote.  With 
this  he  possessed  a  keen  eye,  the  eye  of  a 
poet,  for  human  character,  and  a  power  of 
sympathy  that  enabled  him  to  appreciate  even 
those  whose  principles  and  policy  he  disliked. 
Herein  he  was  not  singular,  for  the  sympathetic 
style  of  writing  history  has  become  fashionable 
among  us.  What  was  remarkable  in  him  was 
that  his  sympathy  did  not  betray  him  into  the 
error,  now  also  fashionable,  of  extenuating  moral 
distinctions.  His  charity  never  blunted  the  edge 
of  his  justice,  nor  prevented  him  from  reprobating 
the  faults  of  the  personages  who  had  touched  his 
heart.  For  one  sin  only  he  had  little  historical 
tolerance  —  the  sin  of  intolerance.  So  there  was 
one  sin  only  which  ever  led  him  to  speak  severely 
of  any  of  his  contemporaries  —  the  sin  of  untruth¬ 
fulness.  Being  himself  sq  simple  and  straight¬ 
forward  as  to  feel  his  inability  to  cope  with  de¬ 
ceitful  men,  deceit  incensed  him.  But  he  did  not 
resent  the  violence  of  his  adversaries,  for  though 
he  suffered  much  at  their  hands  he  knew  many 
of  them  to  be  earnest,  unselfish,  and  conscientious 
men. 

His  pictures  of  historical  scenes  are  admi¬ 
rable,  for  with  his  interest  in  the  study  of  char- 


74  Biographical  Studies 

acter  there  went  a  large  measure  of  dramatic 
power.  Nothing  can  be  better  in  its  way 
than  the  description  of  the  murder  of  St. 
Thomas  of  Canterbury  given  in  the  Memorials 
of  Canterbury ,  which,  after  Sinai  and  Pales¬ 
tine  and  the  Life  of  Arnold ’  may  be  deemed 
the  best  of  Stanley’s  books.  Whether  he 
could,  with  more  leisure  for  careful  thought 
and  study,  have  become  a  great  historian,  was 
a  question  which  those  of  us  who  were  dazzled 
by  his  Public  Lectures  at  Oxford  used  often 
to  discuss.  The  leisure  never  came,  for  he 
was  throughout  life  warmly  interested  in  every 
current  ecclesiastical  question,  and  ready  to 
bear  a  part  in  discussing  it,  either  in  the 
press  —  for  he  wrote  in  the  Edinburgh  Review , 
and  often  sent  letters  to  the  Times  under 
the  signature  of  “  Anglicanus  ” — or  in  Convo¬ 
cation,  where  he  had  a  seat  during  the  latter 
part  of  his  career.  These  interruptions  not 
only  checked  the  progress  of  his  studies,  but 
gave  to  his  compositions  an  air  of  haste,  which 
made  them  seem  to  want  system  and  finish.  The 
habit  of  rapid  writing  for  magazines  or  other 
ephemeral  purposes  is  alleged  to  tell  injuriously 
upon  literary  men:  it  told  the  more  upon  Stanley 
because  he  was  also  compelled  to  produce  sermons 
rapidly.  Now  sermon-writing,  while  it  breeds  a 
tendency  to  the  making  of  rhetorical  points,  sub¬ 
ordinates  the  habit  of  dispassionate  inquiry  to  the 


Dean  Stanley  75 

enforcement  of  a  moral  lesson.  Stanley,  who 
had  a  touch  of  the  rhetorical  temperament,  and 
was  always  eager  to  improve  an  occasion,  certainly 
suffered  in  this  way.  When  he  brings  out  a  general 
truth  he  is  not  content  with  it  as  a  truth,  but 
seeks  to  turn  it  also  to  edification,  or  to  make 
it  illustrate  and  support  some  view  for  which  he 
is  contending  at  the  time.  When  he  is  simply 
describing,  he  describes  rather  as  a  dramatic  artist 
working  for  effect  than  as  a  historian  solely 
anxious  to  represent  men  and  events  as  they 
were.  Yet  if  we  consider  how  much  a  historian 
gains,  not  only  from  an  intimate  knowledge  of 
his  own  time,  but  also,  and  even  more 
largely,  from  playing  an  active  part  in  the 
events  of  his  own  time,  from  swaying  opinion  by 
his  writings  and  his  speeches,  from  sitting  in 
assemblies  and  organising  schemes  of  attack  and 
defence,  we  may  hesitate  to  wish  that  Stanley’s 
time  had  been  more  exclusively  given  to  quiet 
investigation.  The  freshness  of  his  historical 
portraits  is  notably  due  to  the  sense  he  carried 
about  with  him  of  moving  in  history  and  being 
a  part  of  it.  He  never  mounted  his  pulpit 
in  the  Abbey  or  walked  into  the  Jerusalem 
Chamber  when  Convocation  was  sitting  without 
feeling  that  he  was  about  to  do  something  which 
might  possibly  be  recorded  in  the  annals  of  his 
country.  I  remember  his  mentioning,  to  illustrate 
undergraduate  ignorance,  that  once  when  he  was 


7  6  Biographical  Studies 

going  to  give  a  lecture  to  his  class,  he  suddenly 
recollected  that  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  then  Regius 
Professor  of  Modern  History,  was  announced  to 
deliver  a  public  lecture  at  the  same  hour.  Telling 
the  class  that  they  would  be  better  employed  in 
hearing  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith  than  himself,  he  led 
them  all  there.  The  next  time  the  class  met, 
one  of  them,  after  making  some  acute  comments 
on  the  lecture,  asked  who  the  lecturer  was.  “  I 
was  amazed,”  said  Stanley,  “  that  an  intelligent 
man  should  ask  such  a  question,  and  then  it 
occurred  to  me  that  probably  he  did  not  know 
who  I  was  either.”  There  was  nothing  of  per¬ 
sonal  vanity  or  self-importance  in  this.  All  the 
men  of  mark  among  whom  he  moved  were  to  him 
historical  personages,  and  he  would  describe  to 
his  friends  some  doing  or  saying  of  a  contempo¬ 
rary  statesman  or  ecclesiastic  with  the  same 
eagerness,  the  same  sense  of  its  being  a  fact  to 
be  noted  and  remembered,  as  the  rest  of  us  feel 
about  a  personal  anecdote  relating  to  Oliver 
Cromwell  or  Cardinal  Richelieu. 

His  sermons,  like  nearly  all  good  sermons,  will 
be  inadequately  appreciated  by  those  who  now 
peruse  them,  not  only  because  they  were  composed 
for  a  given  audience  with  special  reference  to  the 
circumstances  of  the  time,  but  also  because  the 
best  of  them  gained  so  much  by  his  impassioned 
delivery.  They  were  all  read  from  manuscript,  and 
his  handwriting  was  so  illegible  that  it  was  a  marvel 


Dean  Stanley  7  7 

how  he  contrived  to  read  them.  I  once  asked 
him,  not  long  after  he  had  been  promoted  to  the 
Deanery  of  Westminster,  whether  he  found  it 
easy  to  make  himself  heard  in  the  enormous  nave 
of  the  Abbey  church.  His  frame,  it  ought  to 
be  stated,  was  spare  as  well  as  small,  and  his 
voice  not  powerful.  He  answered :  “  That  de¬ 
pends  on  whether  I  am  interested  in  what  I 
am  saying.  If  the  sermon  is  on  something 
which  interests  me  deeply  I  can  fill  the  nave ; 
otherwise  I  cannot.”  When  he  had  got  a  worthy 
theme,  or  one  which  stimulated  his  own  emotions, 
the  power  of  his  voice  and  manner  was  wonder¬ 
ful.  His  tiny  body  seemed  to  swell,  his  chest 
vibrated  as  he  launched  forth  glowing  words. 
The  farewell  sermon  he  delivered  when  quitting 
Oxford  for  Westminster  lives  in  the  memory  of 
those  who  heard  it  as  a  performance  of  extraor¬ 
dinary  power,  the  power  springing  from  the 
intensity  of  his  own  feeling.  No  sermon  has 
ever  since  so  moved  the  University. 

He  was  by  nature  shy  and  almost  timid,  and  he 
was  not  supposed  to  possess  any  gift  for  extempore 
speaking.  But  when  in  his  later  days  he  found 
himself  an  almost  solitary  champion  in  Convoca¬ 
tion  of  the  principles  of  universal  toleration  and 
comprehension  which  he  held,  he  developed  a  de¬ 
bating  power  which  surprised  himself  as  well  as 
his  friends.  It  was  to  him  a  matter  of  honour  and 
conscience  to  defend  his  principles,  and  to  defend 


7  8  Biographical  Studies 

them  all  the  more  zealously  because  he  stood 
alone  on  their  behalf  in  a  hostile  assembly.  His 
courage  was  equal  to  the  occasion,  and  his  facul¬ 
ties  responded  to  the  call  his  courage  made. 

In  civil  politics  he  was  all  his  life  a  Liberal,  be¬ 
longing  by  birth  to  the  Whig  aristocracy,  and  dis¬ 
posed  on  most  matters  to  take  rather  the  Whiggish 
than  the  Radical  view,  yet  drawn  by  the  warmth 
of  his  sympathy  towards  the  working  classes, 
and  popular  with  them.  One  of  his  chief 
pleasures  was  to  lead  parties  of  humble  visitors 
round  the  Abbey  on  public  holidays.  Like  most 
members  of  the  Whig  families,  he  had  no  great 
liking  for  Mr.  Gladstone,  not  so  much,  perhaps, 
on  political  grounds  as  because  he  distrusted  the 
High  Churchism  and  anti-Erastianism  of  the 
Liberal  leader.  However,  he  never  took  any 
active  part  in  general  politics,  reserving  his 
strength  for  those  ecclesiastical  questions  which 
seemed  to  lie  within  his  peculiar  province.1 
Here  he  had  two  leading  ideas :  one,  that  the 
Church  of  England  must  at  all  hazards  continue 
to  be  an  Established  Church,  in  alliance  with,  or 
subjection  to,  the  State  (for  his  Erastianism  was 
unqualified),  and  recognising  the  Crown  as  her 
head ;  the  other,  that  she  must  be  a  compre- 

1  When  J.  S.  Mill  was  a  candidate  for  Westminster  in  1868,  Stanley 
published  a  letter  announcing  his  support,  partly  out  of  personal  respect 
for  Mill,  partly  because  it  gave  him  an  opportunity  of  expressing  an 
opinion  on  the  Irish  Church  question,  and  of  reprobating  the  charge  of 
atheism  which  had  been  brought  against  Mill. 


79 


Dean  Stanley 

hensive  Church,  finding  room  in  her  bosom  for 
every  sort  or  description  of  Christian,  however 
much  or  little  he  believed  of  the  dogmas  con¬ 
tained  in  the  Thirty-nine  Articles  and  the  Prayer- 
Book,  to  which  she  is  bound  by  statute.  The 
former  view  cut  him  off  from  the  Nonconformists 
and  the  Radicals  ;  the  latter  exposed  him  to  the  fire 
not  only  of  those  who,  like  the  High  Churchmen 
and  the  Evangelicals,  attach  the  utmost  impor¬ 
tance  to  these  dogmas,  but  of  those  also  among 
the  laity  who  hold  that  a  man  ought  under  no 
circumstances  to  sign  any  test  or  use  any  form  of 
prayer  which  does  not  express  his  own  convictions. 
Stanley  would,  of  course,  have  greatly  preferred 
that  the  laws  which  regulate  the  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land  should  be  so  relaxed  as  to  require  little  or 
no  assent  to  any  doctrinal  propositions  from  her 
ministers.  He  strove  for  this  ;  and  he  continued 
to  hope  that  this  might  be  ultimately  won.  But 
he  conceived  that  in  the  meantime  it  was  a  less 
evil  that  men  should  be  technically  bound  by 
subscriptions  they  objected  to  than  that  the 
National  Church  should  be  narrowed  by  the 
exclusion  of  those  whose  belief  fell  short  of  her 
dogmatic  standards.  It  was  remarkable  that 
not  only  did  he  maintain  this  unpopular  view  of 
his  with  unshaken  courage  on  every  occasion, 
pleading  the  cause  of  every  supposed  heretic 
against  hostile  majorities  with  a  complete  forget¬ 
fulness  of  his  own  peace  and  ease,  but  that  no 


80  Biographical  Studies 

one  ever  thought  of  attributing  the  course  he 
took  to  any  selfish  or  sinister  motive.  It  was 
generally  believed  that  his  own  opinions  were 
what  nine-tenths  of  the  Church  of  England  would 
call  unorthodox.  But  the  honesty  and  upright¬ 
ness  of  his  character  were  so  patent  that  nobody 
supposed  that  this  fact  made  any  difference,  or 
that  it  was  for  the  sake  of  keeping  his  own  place 
that  he  fought  the  cause  of  others. 

What  his  theological  opinions  were  it  might 
have  puzzled  Stanley  himself  to  explain.  His 
mind  was  not  fitted  to  grasp  abstract  propo¬ 
sitions.  His  historical  imagination  and  his  early 
associations  attached  him  to  the  doctrines  of  the 
Nicene  Creed;  but  w'hen  he  came  to  talk  of 
Christianity,  he  laid  so  much  more  stress  on 
its  ethics  than  on  its  dogmatic  side  that  his 
clerical  antagonists  thought  he  held  no  creed  at 
all.  Dr.  Pusey  once  said  that  he  and  Stanley  did 
not  worship  the  same  God.  The  point  of  difference 
between  him  and  them  was  not  so  much  that  he 
consciously  disbelieved  the  dogmas  they  held  — 
probably  he  did  not  —  as  that  he  did  not,  like  them, 
think  that  true  religion  and  final  salvation  depended 
on  believing  them.  And  the  weak  point  in  his 
imagination  was  that  he  seemed  never  to  under¬ 
stand  their  position,  nor  to  realise  how  sacred  and 
how  momentous  to  them  were  statements  which 
he  saw  in  a  purely  imaginative  light.  He  never 
could  be  got  to  see  that  a  Church  without  any 


8  i 


Dean  Stanley 

dogmas  would  not  be  a  Church  at  all  in  the  sense 
either  of  mankind  in  the  past  or  of  mankind  in 
the  present.  An  anecdote  was  current  that  once 
when  he  had  in  Disraeli’s  presence  been  descant¬ 
ing  on  the  harm  done  by  the  enforcement  of  dog¬ 
matic  standards,  Disraeli  had  observed,  “  But  pray 
remember,  Mr.  Dean,  no  dogma,  no  Dean.” 

Those  who  thought  him  a  heathen  would  have 
assailed  him  less  bitterly  if  he  had  been  content 
to  admit  his  own  differences  from  them.  What 
most  incensed  them  was  his  habit  of  assuming 
that,  except  in  mere  forms  of  expression,  there 
were  really  no  differences  at  all,  and  that  they 
also  held  Christianity  to  consist  not  in  any  body 
of  doctrines,  but  in  reverence  for  God  and  purity 
of  life.  They  would  have  preferred  heathenism 
itself  to  this  kind  of  Universalism. 

As  ecclesiastical  preferment  had  not  discol¬ 
oured  the  native  hue  of  his  simplicity,  so  neither 
did  the  influences  of  royal  favour.  It  says  little 
for  human  nature  that  few  people  should  be  proof 
against  what  the  philosopher  deems  the  trivial 
and  fleeting  fascinations  of  a  court.  Stanley’s 
elevation  of  mind  was  proof.  Intensely  inter¬ 
ested  in  the  knowledge  of  events  passing  behind 
the  scenes  which  his  relations  with  the  reigning 
family  opened  to  him,  he  scarcely  ever  referred  to 
those  relations,  and  seemed  neither  to  be  affected 
thereby,  nor  to  care  a  whit  more  for  the  pomps 
and  vanities  of  power  or  wealth,  a  whit  less  for 


82  Biographical  Studies 

the  friends  and  the  causes  he  had  learned  to 
value  in  his  youth. 

In  private,  that  which  most  struck  one  in 
his  intellect  was  the  quick  eagerness  with  which 
his  imagination  fastened  upon  any  new  fact, 
caught  its  bearings,  and  clothed  it  with  colour. 
His  curiosity  remained  inexhaustible.  His  de¬ 
light  in  visiting  a  new  country  was  like  that 
of  an  American  scholar  landing  for  the  first 
time  in  Europe.  A  friend  met  him  a  year  be¬ 
fore  his  death  at  a  hotel  in  the  north  of  Eng¬ 
land,  and  found  he  was  going  to  the  Isle  of 
Man.  He  had  mastered  its  geography  and 
history,  and  talked  about  it  and  what  he  was 
to  explore  there  as  one  might  talk  of  Rome  or 
Athens  when  visiting  them  for  the  first  time. 
When  anybody  told  him  an  anecdote  his  sus¬ 
ceptible  imagination  seized  upon  points  which  the 
narrator  had  scarcely  noticed,  and  discovered  a 
whole  group  of  curious  analogies  from  other  times 
or  countries.  Whatever  you  planted  in  this  fertile 
soil  struck  root  and  sprouted  at  once.  Morally, 
he  impressed  those  who  knew  him  not  only  by 
his  kindness  of  heart,  but  by  a  remarkable 
purity  and  nobleness  of  aim.  Nothing  mean  or 
small  or  selfish  seemed  to  harbour  in  his  mind. 
You  might  think  him  right  or  wrong,  but  you 
never  doubted  that  he  was  striving  after  the 
truth.  He  was  not  merely  a  just  man ;  he 
loved  justice  with  passion.  It  was  partly,  per- 


Dean  Stanley  83 

haps,  because  justice,  goodness,  honour,  charity, 
seemed  to  him  of  such  paramount  importance  in 
life  that  he  made  little  of  doctrinal  differences, 
having  perceived  that  these  virtues  may  exist,  and 
may  also  be  found  wanting,  in  every  form  of 
religious  creed  or  philosophical  profession.  When 
the  Convocation  of  the  Anglican  Church  met  at 
Westminster,  it  was  during  many  years  his  habit 
to  invite  a  great  number  of  its  leading  members  to 
the  deanery,  the  very  men  who  had  been  attack¬ 
ing  him  most  hotly  in  debate,  and  who  would 
go  on  denouncing  his  latitudinarianism  till  Con¬ 
vocation  met  again.  They  yielded  —  sometimes 
reluctantly,  but  still  they  yielded — to  the  kind¬ 
liness  of  his  nature  and  the  charm  of  his 
manner.  He  used  to  dart  about  among  them, 
introducing  opponents  to  one  another,  as  indeed 
on  all  occasions  he  delighted  to  bring  the  most 
diverse  people  together,  so  that  some  one  said 
the  company  you  met  at  the  deanery  were  either 
statesmen  and  duchesses  or  starving  curates  and 
briefless  barristers. 

He  had  on  the  whole  a  happy  life.  It  is 
true  that  the  intensity  of  his  attachments  exposed 
him  to  correspondingly  intense  grief  when  he 
lost  those  who  were  dearest  to  him ;  true  also 
that,  being  by  temperament  a  man  of  peace,  he 
was  during  the  latter  half  of  his  life  almost  con¬ 
stantly  at  war.  But  his  home,  first  in  the  lifetime 
of  his  mother  and  then  in  that  of  his  wife,  had 


84  Biographical  Studies 

a  serene  and  unclouded  brightness ;  and  the  care 
of  the  Abbey,  rich  with  the  associations  of  nearly 
a  thousand  years  of  history,  provided  a  function 
which  exactly  suited  him  and  which  constituted 
a  never  failing  source  of  enjoyment.  To  dwell  in 
the  centre  of  the  life  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  to  dwell  close  to  the  Houses  of  Parliament, 
in  the  midst  of  the  making  of  history,  knowing 
and  seeing  those  who  were  principally  concerned 
in  making  it,  was  in  itself  a  pleasure  to  his 
quenchless  historical  curiosity.  His  cheerfulness 
and  animation,  although  to  some  extent  revived 
by  his  visit  to  America  and  the  reception  he  met 
with  there,  were  never  the  same  after  his  wife’s 
death  in  1876.  But  the  sweetness  of  his  dispo¬ 
sition  and  his  affection  for  his  friends  knew  no 
diminution.  He  remembered  everything  that 
concerned  them ;  was  always  ready  with  sym¬ 
pathy  in  sorrow  or  joy ;  and  gave  to  all  alike, 
high  or  low,  famous  or  unknown,  the  same  im¬ 
pression,  that  his  friendship  was  for  themselves, 
and  not  for  any  gifts  or  rank  or  other  worldly 
advantage  they  might  enjoy.  The  art  of  friend¬ 
ship  is  the  greatest  art  in  life.  To  enjoy  his 
was  to  be  educated  in  that  art. 


THOMAS  HILL  GREEN 


The  name  of  Thomas  Green,  Professor  of  Moral 
Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Oxford,  was  not, 
during  his  lifetime,  widely  known  outside  the 
University  itself.  But  he  is  still  remembered  by 
students  of  metaphysics  and  ethics  as  one  of  the 
most  vigorous  thinkers  of  his  time ;  and  his  per¬ 
sonality  was  a  striking  one,  which  made  a  deep 
and  lasting  impression  on  those  with  whom  he 
came  in  contact. 

He  was  born  in  Yorkshire  in  1836,  the  son 
of  a  country  clergyman ;  was  educated  at  Rugby 
School  and  at  Balliol  College,  Oxford,  of  which 
he  became  a  fellow  in  1860,  and  a  tutor  in  1869. 
In  1867  he  was  an  unsuccessful  candidate  for  a 
chair  of  philosophy  at  St.  Andrews,  and  in  1878 
was  elected  Professor  of  Moral  Philosophy  in  his 
own  University,  which  he  never  thereafter  quitted. 
He  was  married  in  1869  and  died  in  1882.  It 
was  a  life  externally  uneventful,  but  full  of 
thought  and  work,  and  latterly  crowned  by  great 
influence  over  the  younger  and  great  respect  from 
the  senior  members  of  the  University. 

I  can  best  describe  Green  as  he  was  in  his 

85 


86  Biographical  Studies 

undergraduate  days,  for  it  was  then  that  I  saw 
most  of  him.  His  appearance  was  striking, 
and  made  him  a  familiar  figure  even  to  those 
who  did  not  know  him  personally.  Thick 
black  hair,  a  sallow  complexion,  dark  eyebrows, 
deep-set  eyes  of  rich  brown  with  a  peculiarly 
steadfast  look,  were  the  features  which  first 
struck  one ;  and  with  these  there  was  a  re¬ 
markable  seriousness  of  expression,  an  air  of 
solidity  and  quiet  strength.  He  knew  compara¬ 
tively  few  people,  and  of  these  only  a  very  few 
intimately,  having  no  taste  or  turn  for  those 
sports  in  which  university  acquaintances  are  most 
frequently  made,  and  seldom  appearing  at  break¬ 
fast  or  wine  parties.  This  caused  him  to  pass 
for  harsh  or  unsocial ;  and  I  remember  having 
felt  a  slight  sense  of  alarm  the  first  time  I  found 
myself  seated  beside  him.  Though  we  belonged 
to  different  colleges  I  had  heard  a  great  deal 
about  him,  for  Oxford  undergraduates  are  warmly 
interested  in  one  another,  and  at  the  time  I  am 
recalling  they  had  an  inordinate  fondness  for 
measuring  the  intellectual  gifts  and  conjecturing 
the  future  of  those  among  their  comtemporaries 
who  seemed  likely  to  attain  eminence. 

Those  who  came  to  know  Green  intimately, 
soon  perceived  that  under  his  reserve  there 
lay  not  only  a  capacity  for  affection  —  no 
man  was  more  tenacious  in  his  friendships  — 
but  qualities  that  made  him  an  attractive  com- 


T.  H.  Green 


87 

panion.  His  tendency  to  solitude  sprang  less 
from  pride  or  coldness,  than  from  the  occupation 
of  his  mind  by  subjects  which  seldom  weigh  on 
men  of  his  age.  He  had,  even  when  a  boy 
at  school  (where  he  lived  much  by  himself,  but 
exercised  considerable  moral  influence),  been 
grappling  with  the  problems  of  metaphysics  and 
theology,  and  they  had  given  a  tinge  of  gravity 
to  his  manner.  The  relief  to  that  gravity  lay  in 
his  humour,  which  was  not  only  abundant  but 
genial  and  sympathetic.  It  used  to  remind  us 
of  Carlyle  —  he  had  both  the  sense  of  humour 
and  an  underlying  Puritanism  in  common  with 
Carlyle,  one  of  the  authors  who  (with  Milton 
and  Wordsworth)  had  most  influenced  him  — 
but  in  Green  the  Puritan  tinge  was  more  kindly, 
and,  above  all,  more  lenient  to  ordinary  people. 
While  averse,  perhaps  too  severely  averse,  to 
whatever  was  luxurious  or  frivolous  in  under¬ 
graduate  life,  he  had  the  warmest  interest  in,  and 
the  strongest  sympathy  for,  the  humbler  classes. 
Loving  social  equality,  and  filled  with  a  sense  of 
the  dignity  of  simple  human  nature,  he  liked  to 
meet  farmers  and  tradespeople  on  their  own  level, 
and  knew  how  to  do  so  without  seeming  to  con¬ 
descend  ;  indeed  nothing  pleased  him  better  than 
when  they  addressed  him  as  one  of  themselves, 
the  manner  of  his  talk  to  them,  as  well  as  the 
extreme  plainness  of  his  dress,  conducing  to  such 
mistakes.  The  belief  in  the  duty  of  approaching 


88 


Biographical  Studies 

the  people  directly  and  getting  them  to  think  and 
to  form  and  express  their  own  views  in  their  own 
way  was  at  the  root  of  all  his  political  doctrines. 

’  Though  apt  to  be  silent  in  general  com¬ 
pany,  no  one  could  be  more  agreeable  when 
you  were  alone  with  him.  We  used  to  say 
of  him  —  and  his  seniors  said  the  same  —  that 
one  never  talked  to  him  without  carrying 
away  something  to  ponder  over.  On  every¬ 
thing  he  said  or  wrote  there  was  stamped  the 
impress  of  a  strong  individuality,  a  mind  that 
thought  for  itself,  a  character  ruggedly  original, 
wherein  grimness  was  mingled  with  humour,  and 
practical  shrewdness  with  a  love  for  abstract 
speculation.  His  independence  appeared  even  in 
the  way  he  pursued  his  studies.  With  abilities  of 
the  highest  order,  he  cared  comparatively  little 
for  the  distinctions  which  the  University  offers; 
choosing  rather  to  follow  out  his  own  line  of 
reading  in  the  way  he  judged  permanently  useful 
than  to  devote  himself  to  the  pursuit  of  honours 
and  prizes. 

He  was  constitutionally  lethargic,  found  it  hard 
to  rouse  himself  to  exertion,  and  was  apt  to  let 
himself  be  driven  to  the  last  moment  in  finishing 
a  piece  of  work.  There  was  a  rule  in  his  College 
that  an  essay  should  be  given  in  every  Friday 
evening.  His  was,  to  the  great  annoyance  of 
the  dons,  never  ready  till  Saturday.  But  when 
it  did  go  in,  it  was  the  weightiest  and  most 


T.  H.  Green  89 

thoughtful,  as  well  as  the  most  eloquent,  that  the 
College  produced.  This  indolence  had  one  good 
result.  It  disposed  him  to  brood  over  subjects, 
while  others  were  running  quickly  through  many 
books  and  getting  up  subjects  for  examination. 
It  contributed  to  that  depth  and  systematic 
quality  which  struck  us  in  his  thinking,  and 
made  him  seem  mature  beside  even  the  ablest 
of  his  contemporaries.  When  others  were  being, 
so  to  speak,  blown  hither  and  thither,  picking 
up  and  fascinated  by  new  ideas,  which  they 
did  not  know  how  to  fit  in  with  their  old  ones, 
he  seemed  to  have  already  formed  for  himself, 
at  least  in  outline,  a  scheme  of  philosophy  and 
life  coherent  and  complete.  There  was  nothing 
random  or  scattered  in  his  ideas;  his  mind,  like 
his  style  of  writing,  which  ran  into  long  and  com¬ 
plicated  sentences,  had  a  singular  connectedness. 
You  felt  that  all  its  principles  were  in  relation  with 
one  another.  This  maturity  in  his  mental  atti¬ 
tude  gave  him  an  air  of  superiority,  just  as  the 
strength  of  his  convictions  gave  a  dogmatic  quality 
to  his  deliverances.  Yet  in  spite  of  positiveness 
and  tenacity  he  had  the  saving  grace  of  a  humility 
which  distrusted  human  nature  in  himself  at  least 
as  much  as  he  distrusted  it  in  others.  Leading 
an  introspective  life,  he  had  many  “  wrestlings,” 
and  often  seemed  conscious  of  the  struggle  be¬ 
tween  the  natural  man  and  the  spiritual  man,  as 
described  in  the  Epistle  to  the  Romans. 


90  Biographical  Studies 

In  these  early  days,  before,  and  to  a  less 
extent  after,  taking  his  degree,  he  used  to 
speak  a  good  deal,  mostly  on  political  topics, 
at  the  University  Debating  Society,  where  so 
many  generations  of  young  men  have  sharpened 
their  wits  upon  one  another.  His  speaking 
was  vigorous,  shrewd,  and  full  of  matter,  yet 
it  could  not  be  called  popular.  It  was,  in  a 
certain  sense,  too  good  for  a  debating  society, 
too  serious,  and  without  the  dash  and  sparkle 
which  tell  upon  audiences  of  that  kind.  Some¬ 
times,  however,  and  notably  in  a  debate  on  the 
American  War  of  Secession  in  1863,  he  produced, 
by  the  concentrated  energy  of  his  language  and 
the  fierce  conviction  with  which  he  spoke,  a 
powerful  effect.1  In  a  business  assembly,  dis¬ 
cussing  practical  questions,  he  would  soon  have 
become  prominent,  and  would  have  been  capable 
on  occasions  of  an  oratorical  success. 

Retired  as  was  Green’s  life,  he  became  by 
degrees  more  and  more  widely  known  beyond  the 


1  As  I  have  referred  to  the  American  Civil  War,  it  is  worth  adding 
that  there  were  no  places  in  England  where  the  varying  fortunes  of  that 
tremendous  struggle  were  followed  with  a  more  intense  interest  than  in 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  and  none  in  which  so  large  a  proportion  of  the 
educated  class  sympathised  with  the  cause  of  the  North.  Mr.  Goldwin 
Smith  led  the  section  which  took  that  view,  and  which  included  three- 
fourths  of  the  best  talent  in  Oxford.  Among  the  younger  men  Green  was 
the  most  conspicuous  for  his  ardour  on  behalf  of  the  principles  of  human 
equality  and  freedom.  He  followed  and  watched  every  move  in  the 
military  game.  No  Massachusetts  Abolitionist  welcomed  the  fall  of 
Vicksburg  with  a  keener  joy.  He  used  to  say  that  the  whole  future  of 
humanity  was  involved  in  the  triumph  of  the  Federal  arms. 


T.  H.  Green 


9 1 


circle  of  his  own  intimates ;  and  became  also,  I 
think,  more  willing  to  make  new  friends.  His 
truthfulness  appeared  in  this  that,  though  powerful 
in  argument,  he  did  not  argue  for  victory.  When 
he  felt  the  force  of  what  was  urged  against 
him,  his  admissions  were  candid.  Thus  people 
came  to  respect  his  character,  with  its  high  sense 
of  duty,  its  simplicity,  its  uprightness,  its  earnest 
devotion  to  an  ideal,  even  more  than  they  admired 
his  intellectual  powers.  I  remember  one  friend  of 
my  own,  himself  eminent  in  undergraduate  Oxford, 
and  belonging  to  another  college,  between  which 
and  Green’s  there  existed  much  rivalry,  who, 
having  been  defeated  by  Green  in  competition 
for  a  University  prize,  said,  “  If  it  had  been 
any  one  else,  I  should  have  been  vexed,  but  I 
don’t  mind  being  beaten  by  a  man  I  respect  so 
much.”  My  friend  knew  Green  very  slightly, 
and  had  been  at  one  time  strongly  prejudiced 
against  him  by  rumours  of  his  heterodox  opinions. 

So  much  for  those  undergraduate  days  on 
which  recollection  loves  to  dwell,  but  which  were 
not  days  of  unmixed  happiness  to  Green,  for  his 
means  were  narrow  and  the  future  rose  cloudy 
before  him.  When  anxiety  was  removed  by  the 
income  which  a  fellowship  secured,  he  still  hesi¬ 
tated  as  to  his  course  in  life.  At  one  time  he 
thought  of  journalism,  or  of  seeking  a  post  in  the 
Education  Office.  More  frequently  his  thoughts 
turned  to  the  clerical  profession.  His  theological 


92  Biographical  Studies 

opinions  would  not  have  permitted  him  to  enter 
the  service  of  the  Church  of  England,  but  he 
did  seriously  consider  whether  he  should  become 
a  Unitarian  minister.  It  was  not  till  he  found 
that  his  college  needed  him  as  a  teacher  that 
these  difficulties  came  to  an  end.  Similarly  he 
had  doubted  whether  to  devote  himself  to  history, 
to  theology,  or  to  metaphysics.  For  history 
he  had  unquestionable  gifts.  With  no  excep¬ 
tional  capacity  for  mastering  or  retaining  facts, 
he  had  a  remarkable  power  of  penetrating  at  once 
to  the  dominant  facts,  of  grasping  their  connection, 
and  working  out  their  consequences.  He  had  also 
a  keen  sense  of  the  dramatic  aspect  of  events,  and 
a  turn,  not  unlike  Carlyle’s,  partly  perhaps  formed 
on  Carlyle,  of  fastening  on  the  details  in  which 
character  shows  itself,  and  illumining  narrative  by 
personal  touches.  On  the  problems  of  theology 
he  had  meditated  even  at  school,  and  after  taking 
his  degree  he  set  himself  to  a  systematic  study  of 
the  German  critics,  and  I  remember  that  when 
we  were  living  together  at  Heidelberg  he  had 
begun  to  prepare  a  translation  of  C.  F.  Baur’s 
principal  treatise.  As  he  worked  slowly,  the  trans¬ 
lation  was  never  finished.  Though  not  pro¬ 
fessing  to  be  an  adherent  of  the  Tubingen  school, 
he  had  been  fascinated  by  Baur’s  ingenuity  and 
constructive  power. 

Ultimately  he  settled  down  to  metaphysical 
and  ethical  inquiries,  and  devoted  to  these  the 


T.  H.  Green 


93 

last  thirteen  years  of  his  life.  During  his  under¬ 
graduate  years  the  two  intellectual  forces  most 
powerful  at  Oxford  had  been  the  writings  of 
J.  H.  Newman  in  the  religious  sphere,  though 
their  influence  was  already  past  its  meridian,  and 
the  writings  of  John  Stuart  Mill  in  the  sphere 
of  logic  and  philosophy.  By  neither  of  these, 
save  in  the  way  of  antagonism,  had  Green  been 
influenced.  He  heartily  hated  all  the  Utilitarian 
school,  and  had  an  especial  scorn  for  Buckle,  who, 
now  almost  forgotten,  enjoyed  in  those  days,  as 
being  supposed  to  be  a  philosophic  historian,  a 
brief  term  of  popularity.  Green  had  been  led 
by  Carlyle  to  the  Germans,  and  his  philosophic 
thinking  was  determined  chiefly  by  Kant  and 
Hegel,  more  perhaps  by  the  former  than  by  the 
latter,  for  it  was  always  upon  ethical  rather  than 
upon  purely  metaphysical  problems  that  his  mind 
was  bent.  His  religious  vein  and  his  hold  upon 
practical  life  made  him  more  interested  in  morals 
than  in  abstract  speculation.  Thus  he  became 
the  leader  in  Oxford  of  a  new  philosophic  school 
which  looked  to  Kant  as  its  master,  and  which 
for  a  time,  partly  perhaps  because  it  effectively  at¬ 
tacked  the  school  of  Mill,  received  the  adhesion  of 
some  among  the  most  thoughtful  of  the  younger 
High  Churchmen.  Like  Kant,  he  set  himself  to 
answer  David  Hume,  and  the  essay  prefixed  to 
his  edition  of  Hume’s  Treatise  on  Human  Nattire, 
along  with  his  Prolegomena  to  Ethics ,  are  the  only 


94  Biographical  Studies 

books  in  which  his  doctrines  have  been  given  to 
the  world,  for  he  did  not  live  to  write  the  more 
systematic  exposition  he  had  planned.  These 
two  essays  are  hard  reading,  for  his  philosophical 
style  was  usually  technical,  and  sometimes  verged 
on  obscurity.  But  when  he  wrote  on  less  abstruse 
matters  he  was  intelligible  as  well  as  weighty,  full 
of  thought,  and  with  an  occasional  underglow 
of  restrained  eloquence.  The  force  of  character 
and  convictions  makes  itself  felt  through  the 
language. 

His  mind,  though  constructive,  was  not,  having 
regard  to  its  general  power,  either  fertile  or 
versatile.  Like  most  of  those  who  prefer  solitary 
musings  to  the  commerce  of  men,  he  had  little 
facility,  and  found  it  hard  to  express  his  thoughts 
in  any  other  words  than  those  into  which  his 
musings  had  first  flowed.  Thus  even  his  oral 
teaching  was  not  easy  to  follow.  An  anecdote  was 
current  how  when  one  day  he  had  been  explaining 
to  a  small  class  his  theory  of  the  origin  of  our 
ideas,  the  class  listened  in  wrapt  attention  to 
his  forcible  rhetoric,  admiring  each  sentence  as 
it  fell,  and  thinking  that  all  their  difficulties 
were  being  removed.  When  he  ended  they 
expressed  their  gratitude  for  the  pleasure  he 
had  given  them,  and  were  quitting  the  room, 
when  one,  halting  at  the  door,  said  timidly, 
“  But,  Mr.  Green,  what  did  you  say  was  really 
the  origin  of  our  ideas?”  However,  whether 


T.  H.  Green 


95 

they  were  or  were  not  capable  of  assimilating 
his  doctrines,  his  pupils  all  joined  in  their  respect 
for  him.  They  felt  the  loftiness  of  his  character, 
they  recognised  the  fervour  of  his  belief.  He 
was  the  most  powerful  ethical  influence,  and 
perhaps  also  the  most  stimulative  intellectual 
influence,  that  in  those  years  played  upon  the 
minds  of  the  ablest  youth  of  the  University. 
But  it  was  a  singular  fact,  which  those  who 
have  never  lived  in  Oxford  or  Cambridge  may 
find  it  hard  to  understand,  that  when  he  rose 
from  the  post  of  a  college  tutor  to  that  of  a 
University  professor,  his  influence  declined,  not 
that  his  powers  or  his  earnestness  waned,  but 
because  as  a  professor  he  had  fewer  auditors 
and  less  personal  relation  with  them  than  he 
had  commanded  as  a  college  teacher.  Such  is 
the  working  of  the  collegiate  system  in  Oxford, 
curiously  unfortunate  when  it  deprives  the  ablest 
men,  as  they  rise  naturally  to  the  highest  posi¬ 
tions,  of  the  opportunities  for  usefulness  they  had 
previously  enjoyed. 

As  his  powers  developed  and  came  to  be 
recognised,  so  did  those  slight  asperities  which 
had  been  observed  in  undergraduate  days  soften 
down  and  disappear.  Though  he  lived  a  retired 
life,  his  work  brought  him  into  contact  with 
a  good  many  people,  and  he  became  more 
genial  in  general  company.  I  remember  his 
saying  with  a  smile  when  I  had  lured  him  into 


96  Biographical  Studies 

Wales  for  a  short  excursion,  “  I  don’t  know 
whether  it  is  a  sign  of  declining  virtue,  but  I  find 
as  I  grow  older  that  I  am  less  and  less  fond  of  my 
own  company.”  From  the  first  he  had  won  the 
confidence  and  affection  of  his  pupils.  Many  of 
them  used  long  afterwards  to  say  that  his  conduct 
and  his  teaching  had  been  the  one  great  example 
.or  one  great  influence  they  had  found  and  felt  in 
Oxford.  The  unclouded  happiness  of  his  married 
life  made  it  easier  for  him  to  see  the  bright  side 
of  things,  and  he  could  not  but  enjoy  the  sense 
that  the  seed  he  sowed  was  falling  on  ground  fit 
to  receive  it.  Even  when  ill-health  had  fastened 
on  him,  and  was  checking  both  his  studies  and 
his  public  work,  it  did  not  affect  the  evenness  of 
his  temper  nor  sharpen  the  edge  of  his  judgments 
of  others.  In  earlier  days  these  had  been  some¬ 
times  austere,  though  expressed  in  temperate  and 
measured  terms. 

I  must  not  forget  to  add  that  although  Green’s 
opinions  were  by  no  means  orthodox,  the  influ¬ 
ence  he  exerted  while  he  remained  a  college  tutor 
was  in  large  measure  a  religious  influence.  As 
the  clergyman  used  to  be  in  the  English  Univer¬ 
sities  less  of  a  clergyman  than  he  was  anywhere 
else,  so  conversely  it  caused  no  surprise  there  that 
a  lay  teacher  should  concern  himself  with  the 
religious  life  of  his  pupils.  Green,  however,  did 
more,  for  he  on  two  occasions  at  least  delivered 
to  his  pupils,  before  the  celebration  of  the  com- 


T.  H.  Green 


97 


munion  in  the  college  chapel,  addresses  which 
were  afterwards  privately  printed,  and  which  pre¬ 
sent  his  view  of  the  relations  of  ethics  and  religion 
in  a  way  impressive  even  to  those  who  may  find 
it  hard  to  follow  the  philosophical  argument. 

Metaphysicians  are  generally  as  little  interested 
in  practical  politics  as  poets  are,  and  not  better 
suited  for  political  life.  Green  was  a  remark¬ 
able  exception.  Politics  were  in  a  certain  sense 
the  strongest  of  his  interests.  To  him  meta¬ 
physics  were  not  only  the  basis  of  theology,  but 
also  the  basis  of  politics.  Everything  was  to 
converge  on  the  free  life  of  the  individual  in  a 
free  State ;  rational  faith  and  reason  inspired  by 
emotion  were  to  have  their  perfect  work  in  mak¬ 
ing  the  good  citizen. 

His  interest  in  politics  was  perhaps  less 
active  in  later  years  than  it  had  been  in  his 
youth,  but  his  principles  stood  unchanged.  He 
was  a  thoroughgoing  Liberal,  or  what  used  to  be 
called  a  Radical,  full  of  faith  in  the  people,  an 
advocate  of  pretty  nearly  every  measure  that 
tended  to  democratise  English  institutions,  a 
friend  of  peace  and  of  non-intervention.  In 
our  days  he  would  have  been  called  a  Little 
Englander,  for  though  his  ideal  of  national  life 
was  lofty,  the  wellbeing  of  the  masses  was  to 
him  a  more  essential  part  of  that  ideal  than  any 
extension  of  territory  or  power.  He  once  said 
that  he  would  rather  see  the  flag  of  England 


H 


98  Biographical  Studies 

trailed  in  the  dirt  than  add  sixpence  to  the  taxes 
that  weigh  upon  the  poor.  In  foreign  politics 
Louis  Napoleon,  as  the  corrupter  of  France  and 
the  disturber  of  Europe,  was  his  favourite  aver¬ 
sion  ;  in  home  politics,  Lord  Palmerston,  as  the 
chief  obstacle  to  parliamentary  reform.  The 
statesman  whom  he  most  admired  and  trusted 
was  Mr.  Bright.  A  strong  sense  of  civic  duty 
led  him  to  enter  the  City  Council  of  Oxford, 
although  he  could  ill  spare  from  his  study  and 
his  lecture-room  the  time  which  the  discharge  of 
municipal  duties  required.  He  was  the  first  tutor 
who  had  ever  offered  himself  to  a  ward  for  election. 
The  townsfolk,  between  whom  and  the  University 
there  had  generally  been  little  love,  the  former 
thinking  themselves  looked  down  upon  by  the 
latter,  warmly  appreciated  his  action  in  coming 
out  of  his  seclusion  to  help  them,  and  his  influence 
in  the  Council  contributed  to  secure  some  useful 
reforms  —  among  others,  the  establishment  of  a 
“  grammar  ”  or  secondary  school  for  the  city. 

One  of  the  last  things  he  wrote  was  a  short 
pamphlet  on  freedom  of  contract,  intended  to 
justify  the  interference  with  bargains  between 
landlord  and  tenant  which  was  proposed  by  Mr. 
Gladstone’s  Irish  Land  Bill  of  1881.  It  is  a 
vigorous  piece  of  reasoning,  which  may  still  be 
read  with  interest  in  respect  of  its  application 
of  philosophical  principles  to  a  political  contro¬ 
versy.  Had  he  desired  it  he  might  have  gone 


T.  H.  Green  99 

to  the  House  of  Commons  as  member  for  the  city 
of  Oxford.  But  he  had  found  in  the  Council  a 
field  for  local  public  work,  and  apart  from  his 
constitutional  indolence  and  his  declining  health, 
he  had  concluded  that  his  first  duty  lay  in  ex¬ 
pounding  his  philosophical  system. 

Green  will  be  long  remembered  in  the  English 
Universities  as  the  strongest  force  in  the  sphere 
of  ethical  philosophy  that  they  have  seen  in  the 
second  half  of  the  nineteenth  century,  and  re¬ 
membered  also  as  a  singular  instance  of  a  meta¬ 
physician  with  a  bent  towards  politics  and  practical 
life,  no  less  than  as  a  thinker  far  removed  from 
orthodoxy  who  exerted  over  orthodox  Christians 
a  potent  and  inspiring  religious  influence. 


ARCHBISHOP  TAIT1 


England  is  now  the  only  Protestant  country  in 
which  bishops  retain  some  relics  of  the  dignity 
and  influence  which  belonged  to  the  episcopal 
office  during  the  Middle  Ages.  Even  in  Roman 
Catholic  countries  they  have  been  sadly  shorn 
of  their  ancient  importance,  though  the  prelates 
of  Hungary  still  hold  vast  possessions,  while 
in  France,  or  Spain,  or  the  Catholic  parts  of 
Germany  a  man  of  eminent  talents  and  energy 
may  occasionally  use  his  official  position  to  be¬ 
come,  through  his  influence  over  Catholic  elec¬ 
tors  or  Catholic  deputies,  a  considerable  political 
factor.  This  happens  even  in  the  United  States 
and  Canada,  though  in  the  United  States  the 
general  feeling  that  religion  must  be  kept  out  of 
politics  obliges  ecclesiastics  to  use  their  spiritual 
powers  cautiously  and  sparingly.  England  stands 
alone  in  the  fact  that  although  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  is,  in  so  far  as  she  is  established 
by  law,  the  creature  and  subject  of  the  State, 
she  is  nevertheless  so  far  independent  as  a 

1  An  admirable  life  of  Archbishop  Tait  by  his  son-in-law,  Dr.  R.T.  David¬ 
son  (now  Archbishop  of  Canterbury),  and  Canon  Benham  appeared  in  1891. 


100 


Archbishop  Tait  ioi 

religious  organisation  that  she  retains  a  greater 
power  than  in  other  Protestant  nations.  State 
establishment,  though  it  may  have  depressed, 
has  not  stifled  her  ecclesiastical  life,  and  a  larger 
proportion  of  her  laity  show  an  interest  in  ecclesi¬ 
astical  questions  than  one  finds  shown  in  Germany 
or  the  Scandinavian  kingdoms.  A  man  of  shining 
parts  has,  as  an  English  bishop,  a  wide  field  of 
action  and  influence  open  to  him  outside  the 
sphere  of  theology  or  of  purely  official  duty.  And 
the  opportunities  of  the  position  attain  their  maxi¬ 
mum  when  he  reaches  the  primatial  chair  of 
Canterbury,  which  is  now  the  oldest  and  the  most 
dignified  of  all  the  metropolitan  sees  in  countries 
that  have  accepted  the  Reformation  of  the  six¬ 
teenth  century. 

Ever  since  there  was  a  bishop  at  Canterbury 
at  all,  that  is  to  say,  ever  since  the  conversion  of 
the  English  began  in  the  seventh  century  of  our 
era,  the  holder  of  that  see  has  been  the  greatest 
ecclesiastical  personage  in  these  islands,  with  a 
recognised  authority  over  all  England,  as  well 
as  an  influence  and  dignity  to  which,  in  the 
Middle  Ages,  the  Archbishops  of  Armagh  and 
St.  Andrews  (primates  of  the  Irish  and  Scottish 
Churches)  practically  bowed,  even  while  refusing 
to  admit  his  legal  supremacy.  To  be  the  most 
highly  placed  and  officially  the  most  powerful 
man  in  the  churches  of  Britain,  in  days  when 
the  Church  was  better  organised,  and  in  some 


102 


Biographical  Studies 

ways  stronger,  than  the  State,  meant  a  vast  deal. 
The  successor  of  Augustine  was  often  called  a 
Pope  of  his  own  world  —  that  world  of  Britain 
which  lay  apart  from  the  larger  world  of  the 
European  continent.  Down  till  the  Reformation, 
the  English  primates  possessed  a  power  which 
made  some  of  them  almost  a  match  for  the 
English  kings.  Dunstan,  Lanfranc,  Anselm, 
Thomas  (Becket),  Hubert,  Stephen  Langton, 
Arundel,  Warham,  were  among  the  foremost 
statesmen  of  their  time.  After  Henry  VIII.’s 
breach  with  Rome,  the  Primate  of  England  re¬ 
ceived  some  access  of  dignity  in  becoming  in¬ 
dependent  of  the  Pope ;  but,  in  reality,  the  loss 
of  church  power  and  church  wealth  which  the 
Reformation  caused  lowered  his  political  impor¬ 
tance.  In  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries, 
however,  there  were  still  some  conspicuous  and 
influential  prelates  at  Canterbury  —  Cranmer,  Pole, 
Whitgift,  and  Laud  the  best  remembered  among 
them.  After  the  Revolution  of  1688,  a  time  of 
smaller  men  begins.  The  office  retained  its 
dignity  as  the  highest  place  open  to  a  subject, 
ranking  above  the  Lord  Chancellor  or  the  Lord 
President  of  the  Council,  but  the  Church  of 
England,  having  no  fightings  within,  nor  any¬ 
thing  to  fear  from  without,  was  lapped  in  placid 
ease,  so  it  mattered  comparatively  little  who  her 
chief  pastor  was. 

Bishoprics  were  in  those  days  regarded  chiefly 


Archbishop  Tait  103 

as  pieces  of  rich  preferment  with  which  prime 
ministers  bought  the  support  of  powerful  adher¬ 
ents.  But  since  the  middle  of  the  nineteenth 
century,  as  the  Anglican  Church  has  become  at 
once  more  threatened  and  more  energetic,  as 
more  of  the  life  of  the  nation  has  flowed  into 
her  and  round  her,  the  office  of  a  bishop 
has  risen  in  importance.  People  show  more 
interest  in  the  appointments  to  be  made,  and 
ministers  have  become  proportionately  careful 
in  making  them.  Bishops  work  harder  and  are 
more  in  the  public  eye  now  than  they  were 
eighty,  or  even  fifty,  years  ago.  They  have 
lost  something  of  the  antique  dignity  and  social 
consideration  which  they  enjoyed.  They  no 
longer  wear  wigs  or  ride  in  State  coaches.  They 
may  be  seen  in  third-class  railway  carriages, 
or  sitting  on  the  tops  of  omnibuses.  But  they 
have  gained  by  having  countless  opportunities 
opened  up  to  them  for  exerting  influence  in 
philanthropic  as  well  as  in  religious  movements ; 
and  the  more  zealous  among  them  turn  these 
opportunities  to  excellent  account. 

Whatever  is  true  of  an  ordinary  bishop  is  true 
a  fortiori  of  the  Archbishop  of  Canterbury.  He 
is  still  a  great  personage,  but  he  is  great  in  a  new 
way,  with  less  of  wealth  and  power  but  larger 
opportunities  of  influence.  He  is  also  a  kind 
of  Pope  in  a  new  way,  because  he  is  the  cen¬ 
tral  figure  of  the  Anglican  communion  over  the 


104  Biographical  Studies 

whole  world,  with  no  legal  jurisdiction  outside 
England  (except  in  India),  but  far  over-topping 
all  the  prelates  of  that  communion  in  the  United 
States  or  the  British  Colonies.  Less  deference  is 
paid  to  the  office,  considered  simply  as  an  office, 
than  it  received  in  the  Middle  Ages,  because 
society  and  thought  have  been  tinged  by  the 
spirit  of  democratic  equality,  and  people  realise 
that  offices  are  only  artificial  creations,  whose 
occupants  are  human  beings  like  themselves.  But 
if  he  is  himself  a  man  of  ability  and  force,  he  may 
make  his  headship  of  an  ancient  and  venerated 
church  a  vantage  ground  whence  to  address  the 
nation  as  well  as  the  members  of  his  own  com¬ 
munion.  He  is  sure  of  being  listened  to,  which  is 
of  itself  no  small  matter  in  a  country  where  many 
voices  are  striving  to  make  themselves  heard  at 
the  same  time.  The  world  takes  his  words  into 
consideration  ;  the  newspapers  repeat  them.  His 
position  gives  him  easy  access  to  the  ministers  of 
the  Crown,  and  implies  a  confidential  intercourse 
with  the  Crown  itself.  He  is,  or  can  be,  “  in 
touch  ”  with  all  the  political  figures  who  can  in 
any  way  influence  the  march  of  events,  and  is 
able  to  enforce  his  views  upon  them.  All  his 
conduct  is  watched  by  the  nation ;  so  that  if  it 
is  discreet,  provident,  animated  by  high  and 
consistent  principle,  he  gets  full  credit  for 
whatever  he  does  well,  and  acquires  that  in¬ 
fluence  to  which  masses  of  men  are  eager  to 


Archbishop  Tait  105 

bow  whenever  they  can  persuade  themselves 
that  it  is  deserved.  During  the  first  half  of 
the  nineteenth  century  the  English  people  was 
becoming  more  interested  in  ecclesiastical  and  in 
theological  matters  than  it  had  been  during  the 
century  preceding.  It  grew  by  slow  degrees 
more  inclined  to  observe  ecclesiastical  persons, 
to  read  and  think  about  theological  subjects,  to 
reflect  upon  the  relations  which  the  Church 
ought  to  bear  to  civil  life  and  moral  progress. 
Thus  a  leader  of  the  Church  of  England  became 
relatively  a  more  important  factor  than  he  had 
been  a  century  ago,  and  an  archbishop,  strong 
by  his  character,  rectitude,  and  powers  of  utter¬ 
ance,  rose  to  occupy  a  more  influential,  if  not  more 
conspicuous,  position  than  his  predecessors  in  the 
days  of  the  Georges  had  done. 

These  changes  naturally  made  the  selection 
of  an  archbishop  a  more  delicate  and  trouble¬ 
some  business  than  it  was  in  those  good  old 
days.  Nobody  then  blamed  a  Prime  Minister  for 
preferring  an  aspirant  who  had  the  support  of 
powerful  political  connections.  Blameless  in  life 
he  must  be :  even  the  eighteenth  century  de¬ 
manded  that  from  candidates  for  English,  if 
not,  according  to  Dean  Swift,  for  Irish  sees. 
If  he  was  also  a  man  of  courtly  grace  and 
dignity,  and  a  finished  scholar,  so  much  the 
better.  If  he  was  a  man  of  piety,  that  also  was 
well.  By  the  time  of  Queen  Victoria  the  pos- 


106  Biographical  Studies 

session  of  piety  and  of  gifts  of  speech  had  become 
more  important  qualifications,  but  the  main  thing 
was  tactful  moderation.  Even  in  apostolic  days 
it  was  required  that  a  bishop  should  rule  his  own 
house  well,  and  the  Popes  esteemed  most  saintly 
have  not  always  been  the  best,  as  the  famous  case 
of  Celestine  the  Fifth  attests.  An  archbishop 
must  first  and  foremost  be  a  discreet  and  guarded 
man,  expressing  few  opinions,  and  those  not  ex¬ 
treme  ones.  His  chief  virtue  came  to  be,  if  not 
the  purely  negative  one  of  offending  no  section  by 
expressing  the  distinctive  views  of  any  other,  yet 
that  of  swerving  so  little  from  the  via  media  be¬ 
tween  Rome  and  Geneva  that  neither  the  Tract- 
arian  party,  who  began  to  be  feared  after  1837, 
nor  the  pronounced  Low  Churchmen  could  claim 
the  Primate  as  disposed  to  favour  their  opinions. 
In  the  case  of  ordinary  bishops  the  plan  could 
be  adopted,  and  has  since  the  days  of  Lord 
Palmerston  been  mostly  followed,  of  giving  every 
party  its  turn,  while  choosing  from  every  party 
men  of  the  safer  sort.  This  method,  however, 
was  less  applicable  to  the  See  of  Canterbury,  for 
a  man  on  whose  action  much  might  turn  could 
not  well  be  taken  from  any  particular  section. 
The  acts  and  words  of  a  Primate,  who  is  expected 
to  “  give  a  line  ”  to  the  clergy  generally  and  to 
speak  on  behalf  of  the  bench  of  bishops  as  a 
whole,  are  so  closely  scrutinised  that  he  must 
be  prudent  and  wary,  yet  not  so  wary  as  to  seem 


Archbishop  Tait  107 

timid.  He  ought  to  be  both  firm  and  suave, 
conciliatory  and  decided.  That  he  may  do 
justice  to  all  sections  of  the  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land,  he  ought  not  to  be  an  avowed  partisan 
of  any.  Yet  he  must  be  able  and  eminent,  and 
of  course  able  and  eminent  men  are  apt  to  throw 
themselves  into  some  one  line  of  action  or  set  of 
views,  and  so  come  to  be  considered  partisans. 
The  position  which  the  Archbishop  of  Canter¬ 
bury  holds  as  the  representative  in  Parliament 
of  the  whole  Established  Church,  makes  states¬ 
manship  the  most  important  of  all  qualifica¬ 
tions.  Learning,  energy,  eloquence,  piety,  would 
none  of  them,  nor  all  of  them  together,  make 
up  for  the  want  of  calmness  and  wisdom.  Yet 
all  those  qualities  are  obviously  desirable,  because 
they  strengthen  as  well  as  adorn  the  Primate’s 
position. 

Archibald  Campbell  Tait  (born  in  Scotland  in 
18 1 1,  died  1882)  was  educated  at  Glasgow  Uni¬ 
versity  and  at  Balliol  College,  Oxford ;  worked  at 
his  college  for  some  years  as  a  tutor,  succeeded 
Dr.  Arnold  as  head-master  of  Rugby  School  in 
1843,  became  Dean  of  Carlisle  and  then  Bishop 
of  London,  and  was  translated  to  Canterbury 
in  1868.  It  has  been  generally  understood  that 
Mr.  Disraeli,  then  Prime  Minister,  suggested 
another  prelate  for  the  post,  but  the  Queen, 
who  did  not  share  her  minister’s  estimate  of 
that  prelate,  expressed  a  preference  for  Tait, 


108  Biographical  Studies 

Her  choice  was  amply  justified,  for  Tait  united, 
and  indeed  possessed  in  a  high  degree,  the 
qualifications  which  have  just  been  enumerated. 
He  was,  if  it  be  not  a  paradox  to  say  so,  more 
remarkable  as  an  archbishop  than  as  a  man.  He 
had  no  original  power  as  a  thinker.  He  was 
not  a  striking  preacher,  and  the  more  pains  he 
took  with  his  sermons  the  less  interesting  did  they 
become.  He  was  so  far  from  being  learned  that 
you  could  say  no  more  of  him  than  that  he  was 
a  sound  scholar  and  a  well-informed  man.  He 
was  deeply  and  earnestly  pious,  but  in  a  quiet, 
almost  dry  way,  which  lacked  what  is  called 
unction,  though  it  impressed  those  who  were 
in  close  contact  with  him.  He  showed  slight 
interest  either  in  the  historical  or  in  the  specula¬ 
tive  side  of  theology.  Though  a  good  head¬ 
master,  he  was  not  a  stimulating  teacher.  Had 
he  remained  all  his  life  in  a  subordinate  posi¬ 
tion,  as  a  college  tutor  at  Oxford,  or  as  canon  of 
some  cathedral,  he  would  have  discharged  the 
duties  of  the  position  in  a  thoroughly  satis¬ 
factory  way,  and  would  have  acquired  influence 
among  his  colleagues,  but  no  one  would  have 
felt  that  Fate  had  dealt  unfairly  with  him  in 
depriving  him  of  some  larger  career  and  loftier 
post.  No  one,  indeed,  who  knew  him  when  he 
was  a  college  tutor  seems  to  have  predicted 
the  dignities  he  was  destined  to  attain,  although 
he  had  shown  in  the  theological  strife  that  then 


Archbishop  Tait  109 

raged  at  Oxford  the  courage  and  independence 
of  his  character. 

In  what,  then,  did  the  secret  of  his  success 
lie  —  the  secret,  that  is,  of  his  acquitting  him¬ 
self  so  excellently  in  those  dignities  as  to  have 
become  almost  a  model  to  his  own  and  the  next 
generation  of  what  an  Archbishop  of  Canterbury 
ought  to  be?  In  the  statesmanlike  quality  of 
his  mind.  He  had  not  merely  moderation,  but 
what,  though  often  confounded  with  modera¬ 
tion,  is  something  rarer  and  better,  a  steady 
balance  of  mind.  He  was  carried  about  by 
no  winds  of  doctrine.  He  seldom  yielded  to 
impulses,  and  was  never  so  seduced  by  any  one 
theory  as  to  lose  sight  of  other  views  and  condi¬ 
tions  which  had  to  be  regarded.  He  was,  I  think, 
the  first  man  of  Scottish  birth  who  ever  rose  to 
be  Primate  of  England,  and  he  had  the  cautious 
self-restraint  which  is  deemed  characteristic  of  his 
nation.  He  knew  how  to  be  dignified  without 
assumption,  firm  without  vehemence,  prudent 
without  timidity,  judicious  without  coldness. 
He  was,  above  all  things,  a  singularly  just 
man,  who  recognised  every  one’s  rights,  and 
did  not  seek  to  overbear  them  by  an  exercise 
of  authority.  He  was  as  ready  to  listen  to  his 
opponents  as  to  his  friends.  Indeed,  he  so  held 
himself  as  to  appear  to  have  no  opponents,  but 
to  be  rather  a  judge  before  whom  different 
advocates  were  stating  their  respective  cases, 


I  I  o 


Biographical  Studies 

than  a  leader  seeking  to  make  his  own  views 
or  his  own  party  prevail.  Genial  he  could 
hardly  be  called,  for  there  was  little  warmth, 
little  display  of  emotion,  in  his  manner;  and 
the  clergy  noted,  at  least  in  his  earlier  epis¬ 
copal  days,  a  touch  of  the  head-master  in  his 
way  of  receiving  them.  But  he  was  simple  and 
kindly,  capable  of  seeing  the  humorous  side  of 
things,  desiring  to  believe  the  good  rather  than 
the  evil,  and  to  lead  people  instead  of  driving 
them.  With  all  his  caution  he  was  direct  and 
straightforward,  saying  no  more  than  was  neces¬ 
sary,  but  saying  nothing  he  had  occasion  to  be 
ashamed  of.  He  sometimes  made  mistakes,  but 
they  were  not  mistakes  of  the  heart,  and,  being 
free  from  vanity  or  self-conceit,  he  was  willing 
in  his  quiet  way  to  admit  them  and  to  alter  his 
course  accordingly.  So  his  character  by  degrees 
gained  upon  the  nation,  and  so  even  ecclesias¬ 
tical  partisanship,  proverbially  more  bitter  than 
political,  because  it  springs  from  deeper  wells  of 
feeling,  grew  to  respect  and  spare  him.  The  in¬ 
fluence  he  obtained  went  far  to  strengthen  the 
position  of  the  Established  Church,  and  to  keep 
its  several  parties  from  breaking  Out  into  more 
open  hostility  with  one  another.  He  himself 
inclined  to  what  might  be  called  a  moderate 
Broad  Church  attitude,  leaning  more  to  Evan¬ 
gelical  than  to  Tractarian  or  Romanising  views 
in  matters  of  doctrine.  At  one  time  the  extreme 


Archbishop  Tait  1 1 1 

High  Churchmen  regarded  him  as  an  enemy. 
But  this  unfriendliness  had  almost  died  away 
when  the  death  of  his  wife  and  his  only  son 
(a  young  man  of  singularly  winning  character), 
followed  by  his  own  long  illness,  stilled  the  voices 
of  criticism. 

He  exerted  great  influence  in  the  House 
of  Lords  by  his  tact,  by  his  firmness  of 
character,  and  by  the  consistency  of  his  public 
course,  as  well  as  by  powers  of  speech,  which, 
matured  by  long  practice,  had  risen  to  a 
high  level.  Without  eloquence,  without  either 
imagination  or  passion,  which  are  the  chief 
elements  in  eloquence,  he  had  a  grave,  weighty, 
thoughtful  style  which  impressed  that  fastidious 
audience.  His  voice  was  strong  and  sonorous, 
his  diction  plain  yet  pure  and  dignified,  his 
matter  well  considered.  His  thought  moved 
on  a  high  plane ;  he  spoke  as  one  who  fully 
believed  every  word  he  said.  The  late  Bishop 
of  Winchester,  the  famous  Dr.  Samuel  Wilber- 
force,  was  incomparably  his  superior  not  only 
as  a  talker  but  as  an  orator,  but  no  less  inferior 
in  his  power  over  the  House  of  Lords,  for 
so  little  does  rhetorical  brilliance  count  in  a 
critical  and  practical  assembly.  Next  to  courage, 
the  quality  which  gains  trust  and  regard  in  a 
deliberative  body  is  that  which  is  familiarly  de¬ 
scribed  when  it  is  said  of  a  man,  “You  always 
know  where  to  find  him.”  Tait  belonged  to  no 


I  I  2 


Biographical  Studies 

party.  But  his  principles,  though  not  rigid,  were 
fixed  and  settled;  his  words  and  votes  were  the 
expression  of  his  principles. 

The  presence  of  bishops  in  the  House  of 
Lords  is  disapproved  by  some  sections  of  English 
opinion,  and  there  are  those  among  the  temporal 
peers  who,  quite  apart  from  any  political  feeling, 
are  said  to  regard  them  with  little  favour.  But 
every  one  must  admit  that  they  have  raised 
and  adorned  the  debates  in  that  chamber. 
Besides  Tait  and  Wilberforce,  two  other  prelates 
of  the  same  generation  stood  in  the  front 
rank  of  speakers,  Dr.  Magee,  whose  wit  and 
fire  would  have  found  a  more  fitting  theatre 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  and  Dr.  Thirl  wall, 
a  scholar  and  historian  whose  massive  intellect 
and  stately  diction  were  too  rarely  used  to  raise 
great  political  issues  above  the  dust-storms  of 
party  controversy. 

Perhaps  no  archbishop  since  the  Revolution 
of  1688  has  exercised  so  much  influence  as  Dr. 
Tait,  and  certainly  none  within  living  memory 
is  so  well  entitled  to  be  credited  with  a  definite 
ecclesiastical  policy.  His  aim  was  to  widen  the 
bounds  of  the  Church  of  England,  so  far  as  the  law 
could,  without  evasion,  be  stretched  for  that  pur¬ 
pose.  He  borealeading  part  in  obtaining  an  Act  of 
Parliament  which  introduced  a  new  and  less  strict 
form  of  clerical  subscription.  He  realised  that 
the  Church  of  England  can  maintain  her  position 


Archbishop  Tait  113 

as  a  State  Church  only  by  adapting  herself  to 
*  the  movements  of  opinion,  and  accordingly  he 
voted  for  the  Divorce  Bill  of  1859,  and  for  the 
Burials  Bill,  which  relieved  Dissenters  from  a 
grievance  that  exposed  the  Established  Church 
to  odium.  The  Irish  Church  Disestablishment 
Bill  of  1869  threw  upon  him,  at  the  critical 
moment  when  it  went  from  the  House  of 
Commons,  where  it  had  passed  by  a  large 
majority,  to  the  House  of  Lords,  where  a  still 
larger  majority  was  hostile,  a  duty  delicate  in 
itself,  and  such  as  seldom  falls  to  the  lot  of  a 
prelate.  The  Queen  wrote  to  him  suggesting 
that  he  should  endeavour  to  effect  a  compro¬ 
mise  between  Mr.  Gladstone,  then  head  of  the 
Liberal  Ministry,  and  the  leading  Tory  peers 
who  were  opposing  the  Bill.  He  conducted  the 
negotiation  with  tact  and  judgment,  and  succeeded 
in  securing  good  pecuniary  terms  for  the  Pro¬ 
testant  Episcopal  Establishment.  Though  he 
had  joined  in  the  Letter  of  the  Bishops  which 
conveyed  their  strong  disapproval  of  the  book 
called  Essays  and  Reviews  (whose  supposed 
heretical  tendencies  roused  such  a  storm  in 
1861),  and  had  thereby  displeased  his  friends, 
Temple  (afterwards  archbishop),  Jowett,  and 
Stanley,1  he  joined  in  the  judgment  of  the  Privy 
Council  which  in  1863  dismissed  the  charges 

1  They  thought  his  public  action  scarcely  consistent  with  the  language 
he  had  used  to  Temple  in  private. 


1 14  Biographical  Studies 

against  the  impugned  Essayists.  Despite  his 
advocacy  of  the  Bill  which  in  1874  provided  a 
new  procedure  to  be  used  against  clergymen 
transgressing  the  ritual  prescribed  by  law,  he 
discouraged  prosecutions,  and  did  his  utmost 
to  keep  Ritualists  as  well  as  moderate  Ration¬ 
alists  within  the  pale  of  the  Church  of  England. 
He  did  not  succeed  —  no  one  could  have  suc¬ 
ceeded,  even  though  he  had  spoken  with  the 
tongues  of  men  and  of  angels  —  in  stilling  ecclesi¬ 
astical  strife.  The  controversies  of  his  days  still 
rage,  though  in  a  slightly  different  form.  But 
in  refusing  to  yield  to  the  pressure  of  any  section, 
in  regarding  the  opinion  of  the  laity  rather  than 
that  of  the  clergy,  in  keeping  close  to  the  law  yet 
giving  it  the  widest  possible  interpretation,  he 
laid  down  the  lines  on  which  the  Anglican 
Established  Church  can  best  be  defended  and 
upheld.  That  she  will  last,  as  an  Establish¬ 
ment,  for  any  very  long  time,  will  hardly  be 
expected  by  those  who  mark  the  direction  in 
which  thought  tends  to  move  all  over  the  civil¬ 
ised  world.  But  Tait’s  policy  and  personality 
have  counted  for  something  in  prolonging  the 
time-honoured  connection  of  the  Anglican  Church 
with  the  English  State. 

Perhaps  a  doubtful  service  either  to  the  Church 
or  to  the  State.  Yet  even  those  who  regret 
the  connection,  and  who,  surveying  the  long 
course  of  Christian  history  from  the  days  of  the 


Archbishop  Tait  115 

Emperor  Constantine  down  to  our  own,  believe 
that  the  Christian  Church  would  have  been 
spiritually  purer  and  morally  more  effective  had 
she  never  become  either  the  mistress  or  the 
servant  or  the  ally  of  the  State,  but  relied  on 
her  divine  commission  only,  may  wish  that,  when 
the  day  arrives  for  the  ancient  bond  to  be  unloosed, 
it  should  be  unloosed  not  through  an  embittered 
political  struggle,  but  because  the  general  senti¬ 
ment  of  the  nation,  and  primarily  of  religious 
men  throughout  the  nation,  has  come  to  approve 
the  change. 


ANTHONY  TROLLOPE1 


When  Mr.  Anthony  Trollope  died  (December 
ii,  1882)  at  the  age  of  sixty-seven,  he  was 
the  best  known  of  our  English  writers  of  fiction 
and  stood  foremost  among  them  if  the  double 
test  of  real  merit  and  wide  popularity  be  applied. 
Some  writers,  such  as  Wilkie  Collins,  may  have 
commanded  a  larger  sale.  One  writer  at  least,  Mr. 
George  Meredith,  had  produced  work  of  far  deeper 
insight  and  higher  imaginative  power.  But  the 
gifts  of  Mr.  Meredith  had  then  scarcely  begun 
to  win  recognition,  and  not  one  reader  knew  his 
name  for  five  who  knew  Trollope’s.  So  Mr. 
Thomas  Hardy  had  published  what  many  con¬ 
tinue  to  think  his  two  best  stories,  but  they  had  not 
yet  caught  the  eye  of  the  general  public.  Mrs. 
Oliphant,  high  as  was  the  general  level  of  her 
work,  and  inexhaustible  as  her  fertility  appeared, 
had  not  cut  her  name  so  deep  upon  the  time 
as  Trollope  did.  Everything  she  did  was  good, 
nothing  superlatively  good.  No  one  placed 

1  Trollope’s  autobiography,  published  in  1883,  is  a  good  specimen  of 
self-portraiture,  candid,  straightforward,  and  healthy,  and  leaves  an 
agreeable  impression  of  the  writer.  Dr.  Richard  Garnett  has  written  well 
of  him  in  the  Dictionary  of  National  Biography. 

116 


Anthony  Trollope  117 

Trollope  in  the  first  rank  of  creative  novelists 
beside  Dickens  or  Thackeray,  or  beside  George 
Eliot,  who  had  died  two  years  before.  But  in 
the  second  rank  he  stood  high ;  and  though 
other  novelists  may  have  had  as  many  readers 
as  he,  none  was  in  so  many  ways  represen¬ 
tative  of  the  general  character  and  spirit 
of  English  fiction.  He  had  established  his 
reputation  nearly  thirty  years  before,  when 
Thackeray  and  Dickens  were  still  in  the  fulness 
of  their  fame ;  and  had  maintained  it  during 
the  zenith  of  George  Eliot’s.  For  more  than 
a  generation  his  readers  had  come  from  the 
best-educated  classes  as  well  as  from  those  who 
lack  patience  or  taste  for  anything  heavier 
than  a  story  of  adventure.  In  this  respect 
he  stood  above  Miss  Braddon,  Mrs.  Henry 
Wood,  Ouida,  and  other  heroines  of  the  circu¬ 
lating  libraries,  and  also  above  such  more 
artistic  or  less  sensational  writers  as  William 
Black,  Walter  Besant,  James  Payn,  and  Whyte 
Melville.  (The  school  of  so-called  realistic 
fiction  had  scarcely  begun  to  appear.)  None 
of  these  had,  like  Trollope,  succeeded  in  making 
their  creations  a  part  of  the  common  thought  of 
cultivated  Englishmen;  none  had,  like  him,  given 
us  characters  which  we  treat  as  typical  men  and 
women,  and  discuss  at  a  dinner-table  as  though 
they  were  real  people.  Mrs.  Proudie,  for  instance, 
the  Bishop  of  Barchester’s  wife,  to  take  the  most 


1 1  8  Biographical  Studies 

obvious  instance  (though  not  that  most  favourable 
to  Trollope,  for  he  produced  better  portraits  than 
hers),  or  Archdeacon  Grantly,  was  when  Trollope 
died  as  familiar  a  name  to  English  men  and 
women  between  sixty  and  thirty  years  of  age 
as  Wilkins  Micawber  or  Blanche  Amory,  or 
Rosamond  Lydgate.  There  was  no  other  living 
novelist  of  whose  personages  the  same  could  be 
said,  and  perhaps  none  since  has  attained  this 
particular  kind  of  success. 

Personally,  Anthony  Trollope  was  a  bluff, 
genial,  hearty,  vigorous  man,  typically  English 
in  his  face,  his  talk,  his  ideas,  his  tastes.  His 
large  eyes,  which  looked  larger  behind  his  large 
spectacles,  were  full  of  good-humoured  life  and 
force ;  and  though  he  was  neither  witty  nor 
brilliant  in  conversation,  he  was  what  is  called 
very  good  company,  having  travelled  widely, 
known  all  sorts  of  people,  and  formed  views, 
usually  positive  views,  on  all  the  subjects  of 
the  day,  views  which  he  was  prompt  to  declare 
and  maintain.  There  was  not  much  novelty  in 
them — you  were  disappointed  not  to  find  so 
clever  a  writer  more  original  —  but  they  were 
worth  listening  to  for  their  solid  common-sense, 
tending  rather  to  commonplace  sense,  and  you 
enjoyed  the  ardour  with  which  he  threw  him¬ 
self  into  a  discussion.  Though  boisterous  and 
insistent  in  his  talk,  he  was  free  from  assumption 
or  conceit,  and  gave  the  impression  of  liking  the 


Anthony  Trollope  119 

world  he  lived  in,  and  being  satisfied  with  his 
own  place  in  it.  Neither  did  one  observe  in  him 
that  erratic  turn  which  is  commonly  attributed  to 
literary  men.  He  was  a  steady  and  regular  worker, 
who  rose  every  morning  between  five  and  six  to 
turn  out  a  certain  quantity  of  copy  for  the  printer 
before  breakfast,  enjoying  his  work,  and  fond  of  his 
own  characters  —  indeed  he  declared  that  he  filled 
his  mind  with  them  and  saw  them  moving  before 
him  —  yet  composing  a  novel  just  as  other  people 
might  compose  tables  of  statistics.  These  me¬ 
thodical  habits  were  to  some  extent  due  to  his 
training  as  a  clerk  in  the  Post  Office,  where  he 
spent  the  earlier  half  of  his  working  life,  having 
retired  in  1864.  He  did  not  neglect  his  duties 
there,  even  when  occupied  in  writing,  and  claimed 
to  have  been  the  inventor  of  the  pillar  letter-box. 
It  was  probably  in  his  tours  as  an  inspector  of 
postal  deliveries  that  he  obtained  that  knowledge 
of  rural  life  which  gives  reality  to  his  pictures 
of  country  society.  He  turned  his  Civil  Service 
experiences  to  account  in  some  of  his  stories, 
giving  faithful  and  characteristic  sketches,  in 
The  Three  Clerks  and  The  Small  Hcrnse  at 
Allington ,  of  different  types  of  Government 
officials,  a  class  which  is  much  more  of  a  class  in 
England  than  it  is  in  America,  though  less  of 
a  class  than  it  is  in  Germany  or  France.  His 
favourite  amusement  was  hunting,  as  readers  of 
his  novels  know,  and  until  his  latest  years  he 


120 


Biographical  Studies 

might  have  been  seen,  though  a  heavy  weight, 
following  the  hounds  in  Essex  once  or  twice  a 
week. 

When  E.  A.  Freeman  wrote  a  magazine 
article  denouncing  the  cruelty  of  field  sports, 
Trollope  replied,  defending  the  amusement  he 
loved.  Some  one  said  it  was  a  collision  of  two 
rough  diamonds.  But  the  end  was  that  Freeman 
invited  Trollope  to  come  and  stay  with  him  at 
Wells,  and  they  became  great  friends. 

Like  most  of  his  literary  contemporaries,  he 
was  a  politician,  and  indeed  a  pretty  keen  one. 
He  once  contested  in  the  Liberal  interest  —  in 
those  days  literary  men  were  mostly  Liberals  —  the 
borough  of  Beverley  in  Yorkshire,  a  corrupt  little 
place,  where  bribery  proved  too  strong  for  him. 
It  was  thereafter  disfranchised  as  a  punishment 
for  its  misdeeds ;  and  his  costly  experiences  doubt¬ 
less  suggested  the  clever  electioneering  sketches 
in  the  story  of  Ralph  the  Heir.  Thackeray  also 
was  once  a  Liberal  candidate.  He  stood  for  the 
city  of  Oxford,  and  the  story  was  current  there  for 
years  afterwards  how  the  freemen  of  the  borough 
(not  an  exemplary  class  of  voters)  rose  to  an  un¬ 
wonted  height  of  virtue  by  declaring  that  though 
they  did  not  understand  his  speeches  or  know 
who  he  was,  they  would  vote  for  him,  expecting 
nothing,  because  he  was  a  friend  of  Mr.  Neate’s. 
Trollope  showed  his  continued  interest  in  public 
affairs  by  appearing  on  the  platform  at  the  great 


Anthony  Trollope  121 

meeting  in  St.  James’s  Hall  in  December  1876, 
which  was  the  beginning  of  a  vehement  party- 
struggle  over  the  Eastern  Question  that  only 
ended  at  the  general  election  of  1880.  He  was 
a  direct  and  forcible  speaker,  who  would  have 
made  his  way  had  he  entered  Parliament.  But 
as  he  had  no  practical  experience  of  politics 
either  in  the  House  of  Commons  or  as  a  working 
member  of  a  party  organisation  in  a  city  where 
contests  are  keen,  the  pictures  of  political  life 
which  are  so  frequent  in  his  later  tales  have 
not  much  flavour  of  reality.  They  are  sketches 
obviously  taken  from  the  outside.  Very  rarely 
do  even  the  best  writers  of  fiction  succeed  in  re¬ 
producing  any  special  and  peculiar  kind  of  life  and 
atmosphere.  Of  the  various  stories  that  purport 
to  describe  what  goes  on  in  the  English  Parlia¬ 
ment,  none  gives  to  those  who  know  the  social 
conditions  and  habits  of  the  place  an  impression 
of  truth  to  nature,  and  the  same  has  often  been 
remarked  with  regard  to  tales  of  English  Uni¬ 
versity  life.  Trollope,  however,  with  his  quick 
eye  for  the  superficial  aspects  of  any  society, 
might  have  described  the  House  of  Commons 
admirably  had  he  sat  in  it  himself.  He  was 
fond  of  travel,  and  between  1862  and  1880 
visited  the  United  States,  the  West  Indies, 
Australia  and  New  Zealand,  and  South  Africa, 
about  all  of  which  he  wrote  books  which,  if 
hardly  of  permanent  value,  were  fresh,  vigorous, 


12  2 


Biographical  Studies 

and  eminently  readable,  conveying  a  definite  and 
generally  correct  impression  of  the  more  obvious 
social  and  economic  phenomena  he  found  then 
existing.  His  account  of  the  United  States, 
for  instance,  is  excellent,  and  did  something  to 
make  the  Americans  forgive  the  asperity  with 
which  his  mother  had  described  her  experiences 
there  many  years  before.  Trollope’s  travel 
sketches  are  as  much  superior  in  truthfulness  to 
Froude’s  descriptions  of  the  same  regions  as 
they  are  inferior  in  the  allurements  of  style. 

The  old  classification  of  novels,  based  on  the 
two  most  necessary  elements  of  a  drama,  divided 
them  into  novels  of  plot  and  novels  of  character. 
To  these  we  have  of  late  years  added  novels  of 
incident  or  adventure,  novels  of  conversation, 
novels  of  manners,  not  to  speak  of  “  novels 
with  a  purpose,”  which  are  sermons  or  pamphlets 
in  disguise.  No  one  doubted  to  which  of  these 
categories  Trollope’s  work  should  be  referred. 
There  was  in  his  stories  as  little  plot  as  a  story 
can  well  have.  The  conversations  never  beamed 
with  humour  like  that  of  Scott,  nor  glittered 
with  aphorisms  like  those  of  George  Meredith. 
The  incidents  carried  the  reader  pleasantly  along, 
but  seldom  surprised  him  by  any  ingenuity  of 
contrivance.  Character  there  was,  and,  indeed, 
great  fertility  in  the  creation  of  character,  for 
there  is  hardly  one  of  the  tales  in  which  three 
or  four  at  least  of  the  personages  do  not  stand 


Anthony  Trollope  123 

out  as  people  whom  you  would  know  again  if 
you  met  them  years  after.  But  the  conspicuous 
merit  of  Trollope’s  novels,  in  the  eyes  of  his 
own  countrymen,  is  their  value  as  pictures  of 
contemporary  manners.  Here  he  may  claim 
to  have  been  surpassed  by  no  writer  of  his 
own  generation.  Dickens,  with  all  his  great 
and  splendid  gifts,  did  not  describe  the  society 
he  lived  in.  His  personages  were  too  un¬ 
usual  and  peculiar  to  speak  and  act  and  think 
like  the  ordinary  men  and  women  of  the  nine¬ 
teenth  century;  nor  would  a  foreigner,  however 
much  he  might  enjoy  the  exuberant  humour  and 
dramatic  power  with  which  they  are  presented, 
learn  from  them  much  about  the  ways  and  habits 
of  the  average  Englishman.  The  everyday  life 
to  which  the  stories  are  most  true  is  the  life 
of  the  lower  middle  class  in  London  ;  and  some 
one  has  observed  that  although  this  class  changes 
less  quickly  than  the  classes  above  it,  it  is  already 
unlike  that  which  Dickens  saw  when  in  the 
thirties  he  was  a  police-court  reporter.  Critics 
have,  indeed,  said  that  Dickens  was  too  great 
a  painter  to  be  a  good  photographer,  but  the 
two  arts  are  not  incompatible,  as  appears  from 
the  skill  with  which  Walter  Scott,  for  instance, 
portrayed  the  peasantry  of  his  own  country  in 
the  Antiquary.  Thackeray,  again,  though  he 
has  described  certain  sections  of  the  upper  or 
upper  middle  class  with  far  more  power  and 


124  Biographical  Studies 

delicacy  than  Trollope  ever  reached,  does  not 
go  beyond  those  sections,  and  has  little  to  tell 
us  about  the  middle  class  generally,  still  less 
about  the  classes  beneath  them.  Trollope 
was  thoroughly  at  home  in  the  English  middle 
class  and  also  (though  less  perfectly)  in  the 
upper  class ;  and  his  pictures  are  all  the  more 
true  to  life  because  there  is  not  that  vein  of 
stern  or  cynical  reflection  which  runs  through 
Thackeray,  and  makes  us  think  less  of  the 
story  than  of  the  moral.  Trollope  usually  has 
a  moral,  but  it  is  so  obvious,  so  plainly  and 
quietly  put,  that  it  does  not  distract  attention 
from  the  minor  incidents  and  little  touches  of 
every  day  which  render  the  sketches  lifelike.  If 
even  his  best-drawn  characters  are  not  far  removed 
from  the  commonplace  this  helps  to  make  them 
fairly  represent  the  current  habits  and  notions  of 
their  time.  They  are  the  same  people  we  meet 
in  the  street  or  at  a  dinner-party ;  and  they  are 
mostly  seen  under  no  more  exciting  conditions  than 
those  of  a  hunting  meet,  or  a  lawn-tennis  match, 
or  an  afternoon  tea.  They  are  flirting  or  talking 
for  effect,  or  scheming  for  some  petty  temporary 
end ;  they  are  not  under  the  influence  of  strong 
passions,  or  forced  into  striking  situations,  like 
the  leading  characters  in  Charlotte  Bronte’s  or 
George  Eliot’s  novels ;  and  for  this  reason  again 
they  represent  faithfully  the  ordinary  surface  of 
English  upper  and  upper  middle  class  society : 


Anthony  Trollope  125 

its  prejudices,  its  little  pharisaisms  and  hypocri¬ 
sies,  its  snobbishness,  its  worship  of  convention¬ 
alities,  its  aloofness  from  or  condescension  to  those 
whom  it  deems  below  its  own  level ;  and  there¬ 
with  also  its  public  spirit,  its  self-helpfulness, 
its  neighbourliness,  its  respect  for  honesty  and 
straightforwardness,  its  easy  friendliness  of  manner 
towards  all  who  stand  within  the  sacred  pale  of 
social  recognition.  Nor,  again,  has  any  one  more 
skilfully  noted  and  set  down  those  transient 
tastes  and  fashions  which  are,  so  to  speak,  the 
trimmings  of  the  dress,  and  which,  transient 
though  they  are,  and  quickly  forgotten  by  con¬ 
temporaries,  will  have  an  interest  for  one  who, 
a  century  or  two  hence,  feels  the  same  curiosity 
about  our  manners  as  we  feel  about  those  of 
the  subjects  of  King  George  the  Third.  That 
Trollope  will  be  read  at  all  fifty  years  after 
his  death  one  may  hesitate  to  predict,  con¬ 
sidering  how  comparatively  few  in  the  present 
generation  read  Richardson,  or  Fielding,  or  Miss 
Edgeworth,  or  Charlotte  Bronte,  and  how  much 
reduced  is  the  number  of  those  who  read  even 
Walter  Scott  and  Thackeray.  But  whoever 
does  read  Trollope  in  1930  will  gather  from  his 
pages  better  than  from  any  others  an  impression 
of  what  everyday  life  was  like  in  England  in  the 
“  middle  Victorian  ”  period.  The  aspects  of  that 
life  were  already,  when  his  latest  books  were 
written,  beginning  to  change,  and  the  features 


126  Biographical  Studies 

he  drew  are  fast  receding  into  history.  Even 
the  clergy  of  1852-1862  are  no  longer,  except  in 
quiet  country  districts,  the  same  as  the  clergy  we 
now  see. 

People  have  often  compared  the  personal  im¬ 
pressions  which  eminent  writers  make  on  those 
who  talk  to  them  with  the  impressions  previously 
derived  from  their  works.  Thomas  Carlyle  and 
Robert  Browning  used  to  be  taken  as  two  in¬ 
stances  representing  opposite  extremes.  Carlyle 
always  talked  in  character :  had  there  been  phono¬ 
graphs  in  his  days,  the  phonographed  “  record  ” 
might  have  been  printed  as  part  of  one  of  his 
books.  Browning,  on  the  other  hand,  seemed 
unlike  what  his  poems  had  made  a  reader  ex¬ 
pect:  it  was  only  after  a  long  tete  a  tete  with 
him  that  the  poet  whose  mind  had  been  learned 
through  his  works  stood  revealed.  Trollope  at 
first  caused  a  similar  though  less  marked  surprise. 
This  bluff  burly  man  did  not  seem  the  kind  of 
person  who  would  trace  with  a  delicate  touch 
the  sunlight  sparkling  on,  or  a  gust  of  temper 
ruffling,  the  surface  of  a  youthful  soul  in  love. 
Upon  further  knowledge  one  perceived  that  the 
features  of  Trollope’s  talent,  facile  invention, 
quick  observation,  and  a  strong  common-sense 
view  of  things,  with  little  originality  or  intensity, 
were  really  the  dominant  features  of  his  char¬ 
acter  as  expressed  in  talk.  Still,  though  the  man 
was  more  of  a  piece  with  his  books  than  he 


Anthony  Trollope  127 

had  seemed,  one  could  never  quite  recognise  in 
him  the  delineator  of  Lily  Dale. 

As  a  painter  of  manners  he  recalls  two  of  his 
predecessors — one  greater,  one  less  great  than 
himself.  In  his  limitations  and  in  his  fidelity 
to  the  aspects  of  daily  life  as  he  saw  them,  he 
resembles  Miss  Austen.  He  is  inferior  to  her 
in  delicacy  of  portraiture,  in  finish,  in  atmosphere. 
No  two  of  his  books  can  be  placed  on  a  level 
with  Emma  and  Persuasion.  On  the  other  hand, 
while  he  has  done  for  the  years  1850-1870  what 
Miss  Burney  did  for  1770-1790,  most  critics  will 
place  him  above  her  both  in  fertility  and  in 
naturalness.  Her  characters  are  apt  either  to 
want  colour,  like  the  heroines  of  Evelina  and 
Cecilia ,  or  to  be  so  exaggerated,  like  Mr.  Briggs 
and  Miss  Larolles,  as  to  approach  the  grotesque. 
Trollope  is  a  realist  in  the  sense  of  being,  in  all 
but  a  few  of  his  books,  on  the  lines  of  normal 
humanity,  though  he  is  seldom  strong  enough  to 
succeed,  when  he  pierces  down  to  the  bed-rock  of 
human  nature,  in  rendering  the  primal  passions 
either  solemn  or  terrible.  Like  Miss  Austen,  he 
attains  actuality  by  observation  rather  than  by 
imagination,  hardly  ever  entering  the  sphere  of 
poetry. 

His  range  was  not  wide,  for  he  could  not 
present  either  grand  characters  or  tragical  situa¬ 
tions,  any  more  than  he  could  break  out  into 
the  splendid  humour  of  Dickens.  His  wings 


128  Biographical  Studies 

never  raised  him  far  above  the  level  floor  of 
earth.  But  within  that  limited  range  he  had 
surprising  fertility.  His  clerical  portrait-gallery 
is  the  most  complete  that  any  English  novelist 
has  given  us.  No  two  faces  are  exactly  alike, 
and  yet  all  are  such  people  as  one  might  see 
any  day  in  the  pulpit.  So,  again,  there  is 
scarcely  one  of  his  stories  in  which  a  young 
lady  is  not  engaged,  formally  or  practically,  to 
two  men  at  the  same  time,  or  one  man  more 
or  less  committed  to  two  women ;  yet  no  story 
repeats  exactly  the  situation,  or  raises  the 
problem  of  honour  and  duty  in  quite  the  same 
form  as  it  appears  in  the  stories  that  went 
before.  Few  people  who  have  written  so  much 
have  so  little  appeared  to  be  exhausting  their 
invention. 

It  must,  however,  be  admitted  that  Trollope’s 
fame  might  have  stood  higher  if  he  had  written 
less.  The  public  which  had  been  delighted 
with  his  earlier  groups  of  novels,  and  espe¬ 
cially  with  that  group  in  which  The  Warden 
comes  first  and  Barchester  Towers  second,  began 
latterly  to  tire  of  what  they  had  come  to 
deem  the  mannerisms  of  their  favourite,  and  felt 
that  they  now  knew  the  compass  of  his  gifts. 
Partly,  perhaps,  because  he  feared  to  be  always 
too  like  himself,  he  once  or  twice  attempted 
to  represent  more  improbable  situations  and  ex¬ 
ceptional  personages.  But  the  attempt  was  not 


Anthony  Trollope  129 

successful.  He  lost  his  touch  of  ordinary  life 
without  getting  into  any  higher  region  of  poeti¬ 
cal  truth ;  and  in  his  latest  stories  he  had  begun 
to  return  to  his  earlier  and  better  manner. 

New  tendencies,  moreover,  embodying  them¬ 
selves  in  new  schools,  were  already  beginning  to 
appear.  R.  L.  Stevenson  as  leader  of  the  school 
of  adventure,  Mr.  Henry  James  as  the  apostle  of 
the  school  of  psychological  analysis,  soon  to  be 
followed  by  Mr.  Kipling  with  a  type  of  imaginative 
directness  distinctively  his  own,  were  beginning  to 
lead  minds  and  tastes  into  other  directions.  The 
influence  of  France  was  more  felt  than  it  had 
been  when  Trollope  began  to  write.  And  what  a 
contrast  between  Trollope’s  manner  and  that  of 
his  chief  French  contemporaries,  such  as  Octave 
Feuillet  or  Alphonse  Daudet  or  Guy  de  Mau¬ 
passant  !  The  French  novelists,  be  their  faculty  of 
invention  greater  or  less,  at  any  rate  studied  their 
characters  with  more  care  than  English  writers 
had  usually  shown.  The  characters  were  fewer, 
almost  as  few  as  in  a  classical  drama ;  and 
the  whole  action  of  the  story  is  carefully  sub¬ 
ordinated  to  the  development  of  these  char¬ 
acters,  and  the  placing  of  them  in  a  critical 
position  which  sets  their  strength  and  weak¬ 
ness  in  the  fullest  light.  There  was  more  of  a 
judicious  adaptation  of  the  parts  to  the  whole 
in  French  fiction  than  in  ours,  and  therefore  more 
unity  of  impression  was  attained.  Trollope,  no 


130  Biographical  Studies 

doubt,  set  a  bad  example  in  this  respect.  He 
crowded  his  canvas  with  figures ;  he  pursued  the 
fortunes  of  three  or  four  sets  of  people  at  the  same 
time,  caring  little  how  the  fate  of  the  one  set 
affected  that  of  the  others ;  he  made  his  novel  a 
sort  of  chronicle  which  you  might  open  anywhere 
and  close  anywhere,  instead  of  a  drama  animated 
by  one  idea  and  converging  towards  one  centre. 
He  neglected  the  art  which  uses  incidents  small 
in  themselves  to  lead  up  to  the  denoument  and  make 
it  more  striking.  He  took  little  pains  with  his 
diction,  seeming  not  to  care  how  he  said  what  he 
had  to  say.  These  defects  strike  those  who  turn 
over  his  pages  to-day.  But  to  those  who  read 
him  in  the  fifties  or  sixties,  the  carelessness  was 
redeemed  by,  or  forgotten  in,  the  vivacity  with 
which  the  story  moved,  the  freshness  and  faithful¬ 
ness  of  its  pictures  of  character  and  manners. 


JOHN  RICHARD  GREEN1 


John  Richard  Green  was  born  in  Oxford 
on  1 2th  December  1837,  and  educated  first 
at  Magdalen  College  School,  and  afterwards, 
for  a  short  time,  at  a  private  tutor’s.  He 
was  a  singularly  quick  and  bright  boy,  and  at 
sixteen  obtained  by  competition  a  scholarship 
at  Jesus  College,  Oxford,  where  he  began  to 
reside  in  1856.  The  members  of  that  college 
were  in  those  days  almost  entirely  Welshmen,  and 
thereby  somewhat  cut  off  from  the  rest  of  the 
University.  They  saw  little  of  men  in  other 
colleges,  so  that  a  man  might  have  a  reputation 
for  ability  in  his  own  society  without  gaining 
any  in  the  larger  world  of  Oxford.  It  so  hap¬ 
pened  with  Green.  Though  his  few  intimate 
friends  perceived  his  powers,  they  had  so  little 
intercourse  with  the  rest  of  the  University,  either 
by  way  of  breakfasts  and  wine-parties,  or  at  the 
University  debating  society,  or  in  athletic  sports, 

1  This  sketch  was  written  in  1883.  A  volume  of  Green’s  Letters,  with 
a  short  connecting  biography  by  Sir  Leslie  Stephen,  was  published  in 
1901.  The  letters  are  extremely  good  reading,  the  biography  faithful  and 
graceful. 


132  Biographical  Studies 

that  he  remained  unknown  even  to  those  among 
his  contemporaries  who  were  interested  in  the 
same  things,  and  would  have  most  enjoyed  his 
acquaintance.  The  only  eminent  person  who 
seems  to  have  appreciated  and  influenced  him 
was  Dean  Stanley,  then  Professor  of  Ecclesias¬ 
tical  History  and  Canon  of  Christ  Church. 
Green  had  attended  Stanley’s  lectures,  and 
Stanley,  whose  kindly  interest  in  young  men 
never  failed,  was  struck  by  him,  and  had  some 
share  in  turning  his  studies  towards  history. 
He  graduated  in  i860,  having  refused  to  compete 
for  honours,  because  he  had  not  received  from 
those  who  were  then  tutors  of  the  college  the 
recognition  to  which  he  was  entitled. 

In  i860  he  was  ordained,  and  became  curate 
in  London  at  St.  Barnabas,  King’s  Square, 
whence,  after  two  years’  experience,  and  one  or 
two  temporary  engagements,  including  the  sole 
charge  of  a  parish  in  Hoxton,  he  was  appointed 
in  1865  to  the  incumbency  of  St.  Philip’s,  Stepney, 
a  district  church  in  one  of  the  poorest  parts  of 
London,  where  the  vicar’s  income  was  ill-propor¬ 
tioned  to  the  claims  which  needy  parishioners 
made  upon  him.  Here  he  worked  with  zeal 
and  assiduity  for  about  three  years,  gaining  an 
insight  into  the  condition  and  needs  of  the  poor 
which  scholars  and  historians  seldom  obtain. 
He  learnt,  in  fact,  to  know  men,  and  the  real 
forces  that  sway  them ;  and  he  used  to  say  in 


John  Richard  Green  133 

later  life  that  he  was  conscious  how  much  this 
had  helped  him  in  historical  writing.  Gibbon, 
as  every  one  knows,  makes  a  similar  remark 
about  his  experience  as  a  captain  in  the  Hamp¬ 
shire  militia. 

Green  threw  the  whole  force  of  his  nature 
into  the  parish  schools,  spending  some  part  of 
every  day  in  them ;  he  visited  incessantly,  and 
took  an  active  part  in  the  movement  for  regulat¬ 
ing  and  controlling  private  charity  which  led 
to  the  formation  of  the  Charity  Organisation 
Society.  An  outbreak  of  cholera  and  period 
of  distress  among  the  poor  which  occurred 
during  his  incumbency  drew  warm-hearted  men 
from  other  parts  of  London  to  give  their  help 
to  the  clergy  of  the  East  End.  Edward  Deni¬ 
son,  who  was  long  affectionately  remembered 
by  many  who  knew  him  in  Oxford  and  London, 
chose  Green’s  parish  to  work  in,  and  the  two 
friends  confirmed  one  another  in  their  crusade 
against  indiscriminate  and  demoralising  charity. 
It  was  at  this  time  that  Green,  who  spent  upon 
the  parish  nearly  all  that  he  received  as  vicar, 
found  himself  obliged  to  earn  some  money  by 
other  means,  and  began  to  write  for  the  Saturday 
Review.  The  addition  of  this  labour  to  the 
daily  fatigues  of  his  parish  duties  told  on  his 
health,  which  had  always  been  delicate,  and  made 
him  willingly  accept  from  Archbishop  Tait, 
who  had  early  marked  and  learned  to  value 


134  Biographical  Studies 

his  abilities,  the  post  of  librarian  at  Lambeth. 
He  quitted  Stepney,  and  never  took  any  other 
clerical  work. 

Although  physical  weakness  was  one  of  the 
causes  which  compelled  this  step,  there  was  also 
another.  He  had  been  brought  up  in  Tractarian 
views,  and  is  said  to  have  been  at  one  time  on 
the  point  of  entering  the  Church  of  Rome.  This 
tendency  passed  off,  and  before  he  went  to  St. 
Philip’s  he  had  become  a  Broad  Churchman,  and 
was  much  influenced  by  the  writings  of  Mr.  F. 
D.  Maurice,  whom  he  knew  and  used  frequently 
to  meet,  and  whose  pure  and  noble  character, 
even  more  perhaps  than  his  preaching,  had  pro¬ 
foundly  impressed  him.  However,  his  restless 
mind  did  not  stop  long  at  that  point.  The  same 
tendency  which  had  carried  him  away  from 
Tractarianism  made  him  feel  less  and  less  at 
home  in  the  ministry  of  the  Church  of  England, 
and  would  doubtless  have  led  him,  even  had  his 
health  been  stronger,  to  withdraw  from  clerical 
duties.  After  a  few  years  his  friends  ceased  to 
address  letters  to  him  under  the  usual  clerical 
epithet ;  but  he  continued  to  interest  himself  in 
ecclesiastical  affairs,  and  always  retained  a  marked 
dislike  to  Nonconformity.  Aversions  sometimes 
outlive  attachments. 

On  leaving  Stepney  he  went  to  live  in  lodgings 
in  Beaumont  Street,  Marylebone,  and  divided 
his  time  between  Lambeth  and  literary  work. 


John  Richard  Green  135 

He  now  during  several  years  wrote  a  good  deal 
for  the  Saturday  Review ,  and  his  articles  were 
among  the  best  which  then  appeared  in  that 
organ.  The  most  valuable  of  them  were  re¬ 
views  of  historical  books,  and  descriptions  from 
the  historical  point  of  view  of  cities  or  other  re¬ 
markable  places,  especially  English  and  French 
towns.  Some  of  these  are  masterpieces.  Other 
articles  were  on  social,  or  what  may  be  called 
occasional,  topics,  and  attracted  much  notice  at 
the  time  from  their  gaiety  and  lightness  of  touch, 
which  sometimes  seemed  to  pass  into  flippancy. 
He  never  wrote  upon  politics,  nor  was  he  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  word  a  journalist,  for  with 
the  exception  of  these  social  articles,  his  work 
was  all  done  in  his  own  historical  field,  and  done 
with  as  much  care  and  pains  as  others  would 
bestow  on  the  composition  of  a  book.  Upon 
this  subject  I  may  quote  the  words  of  one  of  his 
oldest  and  most  intimate  friends  (Mr.  Stopford 
Brooke),  who  knew  all  he  did  in  those  days. 

The  real  history  of  this  writing  for  the  Saturday  Review 
has  much  personal,  pathetic,  and  literary  interest. 

It  was  when  he  was  vicar  of  St.  Philip’s,  Stepney,  that  he 
wrote  the  most.  The  income  of  the  place  was,  I  think, 
^300  a  year,  and  the  poverty  of  the  parish  was  very  great. 
Mr.  Green  spent  every  penny  of  this  income  on  the  parish. 
And  he  wrote  —  in  order  to  live,  and  often  when  he  was 
wearied  out  with  the  work  of  the  day  and  late  into  the  night 
—  two,  and  often  three,  articles  a  week  for  the  Saturday 
Review.  It  was  less  of  a  strain  to  him  than  it  would  have 
been  to  many  others,  because  he  wrote  with  such  speed,  and 


136  Biographical  Studies 

because  his  capacity  for  rapidly  throwing  his  subject  into 
form  and  his  memory  were  so  remarkable.  But  it  was  a 
severe  strain,  nevertheless,  for  one  who,  at  the  time,  had  in 
him  the  beginnings  of  the  disease  of  which  he  died. 

I  was  staying  with  him  once  for  two  days,  and  the  first 
night  he  said  to  me,  “  I  have  three  articles  to  write  for  the 
Saturday  Review ,  and  they  must  all  be  done  in  thirty-six 
hours.”  “  What  are  they?”  I  said;  “  and  how  have  you  found 
time  to  think  of  them  ?  ”  “  Well,”  he  answered,  “  one  is  on 

a  volume  of  Freeman’s  Norman  Conquest,  another  is  a  ‘  light 
middle,’  and  the  last  on  the  history  of  a  small  town  in 
England ;  and  I  have  worked  them  all  into  form  as  I  was 
walking  to-day  about  the  parish  and  in  London.”  One  of 
these  studies  was  finished  before  two  o’clock  in  the  morning, 
and  while  I  talked  to  him ;  the  other  two  were  done  the  next 
day.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  reach  such  speed,  but  it  is  very 
uncommon  to  combine  this  speed  with  literary  excellence  of 
composition,  and  with  permanent  and  careful  knowledge. 
The  historical  reviews  were  of  use  to,  and  gratefully  acknow¬ 
ledged  by,  his  brother  historians,  and  frequently  extended,  in 
two  or  three  numbers  of  the  Saturday  Review,  to  the  length 
of  an  article  in  a  magazine.  I  used  to  think  them  master¬ 
pieces  of  reviewing,  and  their  one  fault  was  the  fault  which 
was  then  frequent  in  that  Review  —  over-vehemence  in 
slaughtering  its  foes.  Such  reviewing  cannot  be  fairly 
described  as  journalism.  It  was  an  historical  scholar  speaking 
to  scholars. 

Another  class  of  articles  written  by  Mr.  Green  were  articles 
on  towns  in  England,  France,  or  Italy.  I  do  not  know 
whether  it  was  he  or  Mr.  Freeman  who  introduced  this 
custom  of  bringing  into  a  short  space  the  historical  aspect  of 
a  single  town  or  of  a  famous  building,  and  showing  how  the 
town  or  the  building  recorded  its  own  history,  and  how  it 
was  linked  to  general  history,  but  Mr.  Green,  at  least,  began 
it  very  early  in  his  articles  on  Oxford.  At  any  rate,  it  was 
his  habit,  at  this  time,  whenever  he  travelled  in  England, 
France,  or  Italy,  to  make  a  study  of  any  town  he  visited. 

Articles  of  this  kind  —  and  he  had  them  by  fifties  in  his 


John  Richard  Green  137 

head  —  formed  the  second  line  of  what  has  been  called  his 
journalism.  I  should  prefer  to  call  them  contributions  to 
history.  They  are  totally  different  in  quality  from  ordinary 
journalism.  They  are  short  historical  essays. 

As  his  duties  at  Lambeth  made  no  great  de¬ 
mands  on  his  time,  he  was  now  able  to  devote 
himself  more  steadily  to  historical  work.  His 
first  impulse  in  that  direction  seems,  as  I  have 
said,  to  have  been  received  from  Dean  Stanley 
at  Oxford.  His  next  came  from  E.  A.  Free¬ 
man,  who  had  been  impressed  by  an  ingenious 
paper  of  his  at  a  meeting  of  the  Somerset 
archaeological  society,  and  who  became  from  that 
time  his  steadfast  friend.  Green  was  a  born 
historian,  who  would  have  been  eminent  without 
any  help  except  that  of  books.  But  he  was  wise 
enough  to  know  the  value  of  personal  counsel 
and  direction,  and  generous  enough  to  be  heartily 
grateful  for  what  he  received.  He  did  not  belong 
in  any  special  sense  to  what  has  been  called 
Freeman’s  school,  differing  widely  from  that  dis¬ 
tinguished  writer  in  many  of  his  views,  and  still 
more  in  style  and  manner.  But  he  learnt  much 
from  Freeman,  and  he  delighted  to  acknowledge 
his  debt.  He  learnt  among  other  things  the  value 
of  accuracy,  the  way  to  handle  original  authorities, 
the  interpretation  of  architecture,  and  he  received, 
during  many  years  of  intimate  intercourse,  the 
constant  sympathy  and  encouragement  of  a  friend 
whose  affection  was  never  blind  to  faults,  while 


138  Biographical  Studies 

his  admiration  was  never  clouded  by  jealousy. 
It  was  his  good  fortune  to  win  the  regard  and 
receive  the  advice  of  another  illustrious  historian, 
Dr.  Stubbs,  who  has  expressed  in  language 
perhaps  more  measured,  but  not  less  emphatic 
than  Freeman’s,  his  sense  of  Green’s  services 
to  English  history.  These  two  he  used  to  call 
his  masters ;  but  no  one  who  has  read  him  and 
them  needs  to  be  told  that  his  was  one  of  those 
strong  and  rich  intelligences  which,  in  becoming 
more  perfect  by  the  study  of  others,  loses  nothing 
of  its  originality. 

His  first  continuous  studies  had  lain  among  the 
Angevin  kings  of  England,  and  the  note-books 
still  exist  in  which  he  had  accumulated  materials 
for  their  history.  However,  the  book  he  planned 
was  never  written,  for  when  the  state  of  his  lungs 
(which  forced  him  to  spend  the  winter  of  1870-71 
at  San  Remo)  had  begun  to  alarm  his  friends, 
they  urged  him  to  throw  himself  at  once  into 
some  treatise  likely  to  touch  the  world  more  than 
a  minute  account  of  so  remote  a  period  could 
do.  Accordingly  he  began,  and  in  two  or  three 
years,  his  winters  abroad  sadly  interrupting  work, 
he  completed  the  Short  History  of  the  English 
People.  When  a  good  deal  of  it  had  gone 
through  the  press,  he  felt,  and  his  friends  agreed 
with  him,  that  the  style  of  the  earlier  chapters 
was  too  much  in  the  eager,  quick,  sketchy, 
“  point-making  ”  manner  of  his  Saturday  Review 


John  Richard  Green  139 

articles,  “  and  did  not  possess  ”  (says  the  friend 
whom  I  have  already  quoted)  “  enough  historical 
dignity  for  a  work  which  was  to  take  in  the  whole 
history  of  England.  It  was  then,  being  convinced 
of  this,  that  he  cancelled  a  great  deal  of  what 
had  been  stereotyped,  and  re-wrote  it,  re-creating, 
with  his  passionate  facility,  his  whole  style.”  In 
order  to  finish  it  he  gave  up  the  Saturday 
Review  altogether,  though  he  could  ill  spare  what 
his  writing  there  brought  him  in.  It  is  seldom 
that  one  finds  such  swiftness  and  ease  in  com¬ 
position  as  his,  united  to  so  much  fastidiousness. 
He  went  on  remoulding  and  revising  till  his 
friends  insisted  that  the  book  should  be  published 
anyhow,  and  published  it  accordingly  was,  in 
1874.  Feeling  that  his  time  on  earth  might  be 
short,  for  he  was  often  disabled  even  by  a  catarrh, 
he  was  the  readier  to  yield. 

The  success  of  the  Short  History  was  rapid 
and  overwhelming.  Everybody  bought  it.  It  was 
philosophical  enough  for  scholars,  and  popular 
enough  for  schoolboys.  No  historical  book  since 
Macaulay’s  History  has  made  its  way  so  fast,  or 
been  read  with  so  much  avidity.  And  Green  was 
under  disadvantages  from  which  his  great  pre¬ 
decessor  did  not  suffer.  Macaulay’s  name  was 
famous  before  his  History  of  England  appeared, 
and  Macaulay’s  scale  was  so  large  that  he  could 
enliven  his  pages  with  a  multitude  of  anecdotes 
and  personal  details.  Green  was  known  only  to  a 


140  Biographical  Studies 

small  circle  of  friends,  having  written  nothing  under 
his  own  signature  except  one  or  two  papers  in 
magazines  or  in  the  Transactions  of  archaeological 
societies  ;  and  the  plan  of  his  book,  which  dealt,  in 
eight  hundred  and  twenty  pages,  with  the  whole 
fourteen  centuries  of  English  national  life,  obliged 
him  to  handle  facts  in  the  mass,  and  touch 
lightly  and  briefly  on  personal  traits.  A  summary 
is  of  all  kinds  of  writing  that  which  it  is  hardest 
to  make  interesting,  because  one  must  speak 
in  general  terms,  one  must  pack  facts  tightly 
together,  one  must  be  content  to  give  those  facts 
without  the  delicacies  of  light  and  shade,  or  the 
subtler  tints  of  colour.  Yet  such  was  his  skill, 
both  literary  and  historical,  that  his  outlines  gave 
more  pleasure  and  instruction  than  other  people’s 
finished  pictures. 

In  1876  he  took,  for  the  only  time  in  his  life, 
except  when  he  had  supported  a  working  man’s 
candidate  for  the  Tower  Hamlets  at  the  general 
election  of  1868,  an  active  part  in  practical 
politics.  Towards  the  end  of  that  year,  when 
war  seemed  impending  between  Russia  and 
the  Turks,  fears  were  entertained  that  England 
might  undertake  the  defence  of  the  Sultan,  and 
a  body  called  the  Eastern  Question  Association 
was  formed  to  organise  opposition  to  the  pro- 
Turkish  policy  of  Lord  Beaconsfield’s  Ministry. 
Green  threw  himself  warmly  into  the  movement, 
was  chosen  to  serve  on  the  Executive  Committee 


John  Richard  Green  141 

of  the  Association,  and  was  one  of  a  sub-committee 
of  five  (which  included  also  Mr.  Stopford  Brooke 
and  Mr.  William  Morris  the  poet  *)  appointed  to 
draw  up  the  manifesto  convoking  the  meeting  of 
delegates  from  all  parts  of  the  country,  which  was 
held  in  December  1876,  under  the  title  of  the 
Eastern  Question  Conference.  The  sub-com¬ 
mittee  met  at  my  house  and  spent  the  whole 
day  on  its  work.  It  was  a  new  and  curious 
experience  to  see  these  three  great  men  of 
letters  drafting  a  political  appeal.  Morris  and 
Green  were  both  of  them  passionately  anti- 
Turkish,  and  Morris  indeed  acted  for  the  next 
two  years  as  treasurer  of  the  Association,  doing 
his  work  with  a  business-like  efficiency  such  as 
poets  seldom  possess.  Green  continued  to  attend 
the  general  committee  until,  after  the  Treaty  of 
Berlin,  it  ceased  to  meet,  and  took  the  keenest 
interest  in  its  proceedings.  But  his  weak  health 
and  frequent  winter  absences  made  public  ap¬ 
pearances  impossible  to  him.  He  was  all  his 
life  an  ardent  Liberal.  His  sympathy  with 
national  movements  did  not  confine  itself  to 
Continental  Europe,  but  embraced  Ireland  and 
made  him  a  Home  Ruler  long  before  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone  and  the  Liberal  party  adopted  that  pol¬ 
icy.  It  ought  to  be  added  that  though  he  had 
ceased  to  belong  to  the  Church  of  England,  he 
remained  strongly  opposed  to  disestablishment. 


1  Sir  George  Young  and  I  were  the  other  members. 


142  Biographical  Studies 

When  he  had  completed  the  re-casting  of  his 
Short  History  in  the  form  of  a  larger  book,  which 
appeared  under  the  title  of  A  History  of  the 
English  People ,  he  addressed  himself  with  char¬ 
acteristic  activity  to  a  new  project.  He  had  for  a 
long  time  meditated  upon  the  origines  of  English 
history,  the  settlement  of  the  Teutonic  invaders 
in  Britain,  followed  by  the  consolidation  of  their 
tribes  into  a  nation  with  definite  institutions  and 
a  settled  order;  and  his  desire  to  treat  this  topic 
was  stimulated  by  the  way  in  which  some  critics 
had  sought  to  disparage  his  Short  History 
as  a  mere  popularising  of  other  people’s  ideas. 
The  criticism  was  unjust,  for,  if  there  had  been 
no  rummaging  in  MS.  sources  for  the  Short 
History ,  there  was  abundant  originality  in  the 
views  the  book  contained.  However,  these 
carpings  disposed  his  friends  to  recommend  an  en¬ 
terprise  which  would  lead  him  to  deal  chiefly  with 
original  authorities,  and  to  put  forth  those  powers 
of  criticism  and  construction  which  they  knew  him 
to  possess.  Thus  he  set  to  work  afresh  at  the 
very  beginning,  at  Roman  Britain  and  the  Saxon 
Conquest.  He  had  not  advanced  far  when,  having 
gone  to  spend  the  winter  in  Egypt,  he  caught  an 
illness  which  so  told  on  his  weak  frame  that  he  was 
only  just  able  to  return  to  London  in  April,  and 
would  not  have  reached  it  at  all  but  for  the  care 
with  which  he  was  tended  by  his  wife.  (He  had 
married  Miss  Alice  Stopford  in  1877.)  In  a  few 


John  Richard  Green  143 

weeks  he  so  far  recovered  as  to  be  able  to  resume 
his  studies,  though  now  forbidden  to  give  to  them 
more  than  two  or  three  hours  a  day.  However, 
what  he  could  not  do  alone  he  did  with  and  through 
his  wife,  who  consulted  the  original  sources  for 
him,  investigated  obscure  points,  and  wrote  at 
his  dictation.  In  this  way,  during  the  summer 
and  autumn  months  of  1881,  when  often  some 
slight  change  of  weather  would  throw  him  back 
and  make  work  impossible  for  days  or  weeks, 
the  book  was  prepared,  which  he  published  in 
February  1882,  under  the  title  of  The  Making  of 
England.  Even  in  those  few  months  it  was  in¬ 
cessantly  rewritten ;  no  less  than  ten  copies  were 
made  of  the  first  chapter.  It  was  warmly  received 
by  the  few  persons  who  were  capable  of  judging 
its  merits.  But  he  was  himself  far  from  satisfied 
with  it  as  a  literary  performance,  thinking  that  a 
reader  would  find  it  at  once  too  speculative  and 
too  dry,  deficient  in  the  details  needed  to  make 
the  life  of  primitive  England  real  and  instructive. 
If  this  had  been  so  it  would  have  been  due  to  no 
failing  in  his  skill,  but  to  the  scantiness  of  the 
materials  available  for  the  first  few  centuries  of 
our  national  history.  But  he  felt  it  so  strongly 
that  he  wras  often  disposed  to  recur  to  his  idea  of 
writing  a  history  of  the  last  seventy  or  eighty 
years,  and  was  only  induced  by  the  encourage¬ 
ment  of  a  few  friends  to  pursue  the  narrative 
which,  in  The  Making  of  England ,  he  had  carried 


144  Biographical  Studies 

down  to  the  reign  of  Egbert.  The  winter  of  1881 
was  spent  at  Mentone,  and  the  following  summer 
in  London.  He  continued  very  weak,  and  was 
sometimes  unable  for  weeks  together  to  go  out 
driving  or  to  work  at  home.  But  the  moment 
that  an  access  of  strength  returned,  the  note¬ 
books  were  brought  out,  and  he  was  again  busy 
going  through  what  his  wife’s  industry  had 
tabulated,  and  dictating  for  an  hour  or  two  till 
fatigue  forced  him  to  desist.  Those  who  saw 
him  during  that  summer  were  amazed,  not  only 
at  the  brave  spirit  which  refused  to  yield  to 
physical  feebleness,  but  at  the  brightness  and 
clearness  of  his  intellect,  which  was  not  only 
as  active  as  it  had  ever  been  before,  but  as 
much  interested  in  whatever  passed  in  the  world. 
When  one  saw  him  sitting  propped  up  with 
cushions  on  the  sofa,  his  tiny  frame  worn  to 
skin  and  bone,  his  voice  interrupted  by  frequent 
fits  of  coughing,  it  seemed  wrong  to  stay,  but, 
after  a  little,  all  was  forgotten  in  the  fascina¬ 
tion  of  his  talk,  and  one  found  it  hard  to 
realise  that  where  thought  was  strong  speech 
might  be  weak. 

In  October,  when  he  returned  to  Mentone, 
the  tale  of  early  English  history  had  been  com¬ 
pleted,  and  was  in  type  down  to  the  death  of 
Earl  Godwine  in  a.d.  1052.  He  had  hesitated 
as  to  the  point  at  which  the  book  should  end, 
but  finally  decided  to  carry  it  down  to  a.d.  1085, 


John  Richard  Green  145 

the  date  of  the  dispersion  of  the  last  great  Scandi¬ 
navian  armament  which  threatened  England.  As 
the  book  dealt  with  both  the  Danish  and  Norman 
invasions,  he  called  it  The  Conquest  of  England. 
It  appeared  after  his  death,  wanting,  indeed, 
those  expansions  in  several  places  which  he  had 
meant  to  give  it,  but  still  a  book  such  as  few  but 
he  could  have  produced,  full  of  new  light,  and 
equal  in  the  parts  which  have  been  fully  handled 
to  the  best  work  of  his  earlier  years. 

Soon  after  he  returned  to  Mentone  he  became 
rapidly  worse,  and  unfit  for  any  continuous  exer¬ 
tion.  He  could  barely  sit  in  the  garden  during 
an  hour  or  two  of  morning  sunshine.  There  I 
saw  him  in  the  end  of  December,  fresh  and 
keen  as  ever,  aware  that  the  most  he  could 
hope  for  was  to  live  long  enough  to  complete 
his  Conquest ,  but  eagerly  reading  every  new 
book  that  came  to  him  from  England,  starting 
schemes  for  various  historical  treatises  sufficient 
to  fill  three  life-times,  and  ranging  in  talk  over 
the  whole  field  of  politics,  literature,  and  history. 
It  seemed  as  if  the  intellect  and  will,  which  strove 
to  remain  till  their  work  was  done,  were  the  only 
things  which  held  the  weak  and  wasted  body 
together.  The  ardour  of  his  spirit  prolonged 
life  amid  the  signs  of  death.  In  January  there 
came  a  new  attack,  and  in  February  another 
unexpected  rally.  On  the  2nd  of  March  he 
remarked  that  it  was  no  use  fighting  longer, 


146  Biographical  Studies 

and  expired  five  days  afterwards  at  the  age  of 
forty-six. 

Short  as  his  life  was,  maimed  and  saddened 
by  an  ill  health  which  gave  his  powers  no  fair 
chance,  it  was  not  an  unhappy  life,  for  he  had 
that  immense  power  of  enjoyment  which  so  often 
belongs  to  a  vivacious  intelligence.  He  delighted 
in  books,  in  travel,  in  his  friends’  company,  in  the 
constant  changes  and  movements  of  the  world. 
No  satiety  dulled  his  taste  for  these  things,  nor 
was  his  spirit, except  for  passing  moments,  darkened 
by  the  shadows  which  to  others  seemed  to  lie  so 
thick  around  his  path.  He  enjoyed,  though 
without  boasting,  the  fame  his  books  had  won, 
and  the  sense  of  creative  power.  And  the  last 
six  years  of  his  life  were  brightened  by  the 
society  and  affection  of  one  who  entered  into 
all  his  tastes  and  pursuits  with  the  fullest 
sympathy,  and  enabled  him,  by  her  unwearied 
diligence,  to  prosecute  labours  which  physical 
weakness  must  otherwise  have  arrested. 

He  might  have  won  fame  as  a  preacher  or  as 
a  political  journalist.  It  was,  however,  towards 
historical  study  that  the  whole  current  of  his 
intellect  set,  and  as  it  is  by  what  he  did  in  that 
sphere  that  he  will  be  remembered,  his  special 
gifts  for  it  deserve  to  be  examined. 

A  historian  needs  four  kinds  of  capacity. 
First  of  all,  accuracy,  and  a  desire  for  the  exact 
truth,  which  will  grudge  no  time  and  pains  in 


*47 


John  Richard  Green 

tracing  out  even  what  might  seem  a  trivial 
matter.  Secondly,  keen  observation,  which  can 
fasten  upon  small  points,  and  discover  in  isolated 
data  the  basis  for  some  generalisation,  or  the 
illustration  of  some  principle.  Thirdly,  a  sound 
and  calm  judgment,  which  will  subject  all 
inferences  and  generalisations,  both  one’s  own 
and  other  people’s,  to  a  searching  review, 
and  weigh  in  delicate  scales  their  validity. 
These  two  last  mentioned  qualifications  taken 
together  make  up  what  we  call  the  critical 
faculty,  i.e.  the  power  of  dealing  with  evidence 
as  tending  to  establish  or  discredit  statements 
of  fact,  and  those  general  conclusions  which 
are  built  on  the  grouping  of  facts.  Neither 
acuteness  alone  nor  the  judicial  balance  alone  is 
enough  to  make  the  critic.  There  are  men  quick 
in  observation  and  fertile  in  suggestion  whose 
conclusions  are  worthless,  because  they  cannot 
weigh  one  argument  against  another,  just  as 
there  are  solid  and  well-balanced  minds  that 
never  enlighten  a  subject  because,  while  detecting 
the  errors  of  others,  they  cannot  combine  the 
data  and  propound  a  luminous  explanation.  To 
the  making  of  a  true  critic,  in  history,  in  phi¬ 
losophy,  in  literature,  in  psychology,  even  largely 
in  the  sciences  of  nature,  there  should  go  not  only 
judgment,  but  also  a  certain  measure  of  creative 
power.  Fourthly,  the  historian  must  have  imag¬ 
ination,  not  indeed  with  that  intensity  which 


148  Biographical  Studies 

makes  the  poet,  but  in  sufficient  volume  to  let 
him  feel  the  men  of  other  ages  and  countries  to  be 
living  and  real  like  those  among  whom  he  moves, 
to  present  to  him  a  large  and  full  picture  of  a 
world  remote  from  himself  in  time,  as  a  world 
moving,  struggling,  hoping,  fearing,  enjoying,  be¬ 
lieving,  like  the  near  world  of  to-day  —  a  world  in 
which  there  went  on  a  private  life  of  thousands  or 
millions  of  men  and  women,  vaster,  more  complex, 
more  interesting  than  that  public  life  which  is 
sometimes  all  that  the  records  of  the  past  have 
transmitted  to  us.  Our  imaginative  historian 
may  or  may  not  be  able  to  reconstruct  for  us  the 
private  and  personal  as  well  as  the  public  or 
political  life  of  the  past.  If  he  can,  he  will.  If 
the  data  are  too  scanty,  he  may  cautiously  for¬ 
bear.  Yet  he  will  still  feel  that  those  whose 
movements  on  the  public  stage  he  chronicles 
were  steeped  in  an  environment  of  natural 
and  human  influences  which  must  have  affected 
them  at  every  turn ;  and  he  will  so  describe 
them  as  to  make  us  feel  them  human,  and  give 
life  to  the  pallid  figures  of  far-off  warriors  and 
lawgivers. 

To  these  four  aptitudes  one  need  hardly  add 
the  faculty  of  literary  exposition,  for  whoever 
possesses  in  large  measure  the  last  three,  or 
even  the  last  alone,  cannot  fail  to  interest  his 
readers ;  and  what  more  does  literary  talent 
mean  ? 


John  Richard  Green  149 

Distinguishing  these  several  aptitudes,  his¬ 
torians  will  be  found  to  fall  into  two  classes, 
according  as  there  predominates  in  them  the 
critical  or  the  imaginative  faculty.  Though  no 
one  can  attain  greatness  without  both  gifts,  still 
they  may  be  present  in  very  unequal  degrees. 
Some  will  investigate  tangible  facts  and  their 
relations  with  special  care,  occupying  themselves 
chiefly  with  that  constitutional  and  diplomatic 
side  of  history  in  which  positive  conclusions  are 
(from  the  comparative  abundance  of  records)  most 
easily  reached.  Others  will  be  drawn  towards 
the  dramatic  and  personal  elements  in  history, 
primarily  as  they  appear  in  the  lives  of  famous 
individual  men,  secondarily  as  they  are  seen, 
more  dimly  but  not  less  impressively,  in  groups 
and  masses  of  men,  and  in  a  nation  at  large, 
and  will  also  observe  and  dwell  upon  inci¬ 
dents  of  private  life  or  features  of  social  and 
religious  custom,  which  the  student  of  stately 
politics  passes  by. 

As  Coleridge,  when  he  divided  thinkers  into  two 
classes,  took  Plato  as  the  type  of  one,  Aristotle 
of  the  other,  so  we  may  take  as  representatives  of 
these  two  tendencies  among  historians  Thucydides 
for  the  critical  and  philosophical,  Herodotus  for  the 
imaginative  and  picturesque.  The  former  does  not 
indeed  want  a  sense  of  the  dramatic  grandeur  of  a 
situation  ;  his  narrative  of  the  later  part  of  the 
Athenian  expedition  against  Syracuse  is  like  a 


150  Biographical  Studies 

piece  of  .dEschylus  in  prose.  So  too  Herodotus 
is  by  no  means  without  a  philosophical  view  of 
things,  nor  without  a  critical  instinct,  although 
his  generalisations  are  sometimes  vague  or 
fanciful,  and  his  critical  apparatus  rudimentary. 
Each  is  so  splendid  because  each  is  wide,  with 
the  great  gifts  largely,  although  not  equally, 
developed. 

Green  was  an  historian  of  the  Herodotean 
type.  He  possessed  capacities  which  belong  to 
the  other  type  also;  he  was  critical,  sceptical, 
perhaps  too  sceptical,  and  philosophical.  Yet 
the  imaginative  quality  was  the  leading  and  dis¬ 
tinctive  quality  in  his  mind  and  writing.  An 
ordinary  reader,  if  asked  what  was  the  main 
impression  given  by  the  Short  History  of  the 
English  People ,  would  answer  that  it  was  the 
impression  of  picturesqueness  and  vividity  — 
picturesqueness  in  attention  to  the  externals  of 
the  life  described,  vividity  in  the  presentation 
of  that  life  itself. 

I  remember  to  have  once,  in  talking  with 
Green  about  Greek  history,  told  him  how  I 
had  heard  Mr.  Jowett,  in  discussing  the  ancient 
historians,  disparage  Herodotus  and  declare  him 
unworthy  to  be  placed  near  Thucydides.  Green 
answered,  almost  with  indignation,  that  to  say 
such  a  thing  showed  that  eminent  scholars  might 
have  little  feeling  for  history.  “  Great  as  Thu¬ 
cydides  is,”  he  said,  “  Herodotus  is  far  greater,  or 


John  Richard  Green  15  i 

at  any  rate  far  more  precious.  His  view  was  so 
much  wider.”  I  forget  the  rest  of  the  conversa¬ 
tion,  but  what  he  meant  was  that  Herodotus,  to 
whom  everything  in  the  world  was  interesting, 
and  who  has  told  us  something  about  every 
country  he  visited  or  heard  of,  had  a  more  fruitful 
conception  of  history  than  his  Athenian  successor, 
who  practically  confined  himself  to  politics  in  the 
narrower  sense  of  the  term,  and  that  even  the  wis¬ 
dom  of  the  latter  is  not  so  valuable  to  us  as  the 
flood  of  miscellaneous  information  which  Herodo¬ 
tus  pours  out  about  everything  in  the  early  world 
—  a  world  about  which  we  should  know  compara¬ 
tively  little  if  his  book  had  not  been  preserved. 

This  deliverance  was  thoroughly  characteristic 
of  Green’s  own  view  of  history.  Everything  was 
interesting  to  him  because  his  imagination  laid 
hold  of  everything.  When  he  travelled,  nothing 
escaped  his  quick  eye,  perpetually  ranging  over 
the  aspects  of  places  and  society.  When  he  went 
out  to  dinner,  he  noted  every  person  present  whom 
he  had  not  known  before,  and  could  tell  you  after¬ 
wards  something  about  them.  He  had  a  theory, 
so  to  speak,  about  each  of  them,  and  indeed  about 
every  one  with  whom  he  exchanged  a  dozen 
words.  When  he  read  the  newspaper,  he  seemed 
to  squeeze  all  the  juice  out  of  it  in  a  few  minutes. 
Nor  was  it  merely  the  large  events  that  fixed 
his  mind ;  he  drew  from  stray  notices  of  minor 
current  matters  evidence  of  principles  or  ten- 


152  Biographical  Studies 

dencies  which  escaped  other  people’s  eyes.  You 
never  left  him  without  having  new  light  thrown 
upon  the  questions  of  the  hour.  His  memory  was 
retentive,  but  more  remarkable  was  the  sustained 
keenness  of  apprehension  with  which  he  read, 
and  which  made  him  fasten  upon  everything  in 
a  book  or  in  talk  which  was  significant,  and 
could  be  made  the  basis  for  an  illustration  of 
some  view.  He  had  the  Herodotean  quality  of 
reckoning  nothing,  however  small  or  apparently 
remote  from  the  main  studies  of  his  life,  to 
be  trivial  or  unfruitful.  His  imagination  vitalised 
the  small  things,  and  found  a  place  for  them 
in  the  pictures  he  was  always  sketching  out. 

As  this  faculty  of  discerning  hidden  meanings 
and  relations  was  one  index  and  consequence 
of  his  imaginative  power,  so  another  was  found 
in  that  artistic  gift  to  which  I  have  referred. 
To  give  literary  form  to  everything  was  a  neces¬ 
sity  of  his  intellect.  He  could  not  tell  an  anec¬ 
dote  or  repeat  a  conversation  without  unconsciously 
dramatising  it,  putting  into  people’s  mouths  better 
phrases  than  they  would  have  themselves  em¬ 
ployed,  and  giving  a  finer  point  to  the  moral 
which  the  incident  expressed.  Verbal  accuracy 
suffered,  but  what  he  thought  the  inner  truth 
came  out  the  more  fully. 

Though  he  wrote  very  fast,  and  in  the  most 
familiar  way,  the  style  of  his  more  serious  letters 
was  as  good,  I  might  say  as  finished,  as  that  of  his 


1 5  3 


John  Richard  Green 

books.  Every  one  of  them  had  a  beginning, 
middle,  and  end.  The  ideas  were  developed  in  an 
apt  and  graceful  order,  the  sentences  could  all  be 
construed,  the  diction  was  choice.  It  was  the 
same  with  the  short  articles  which  he  at  one  time 
used  to  write  for  the  Saturday  Review.  They 
are  little  essays,  some  of  them  worthy  to  live  not 
only  for  the  excellent  matter  they  contain,  but 
for  the  delicate  refinement  of  their  form.  Yet 
they  were  all  written  swiftly,  and  sometimes  in 
the  midst  of  physical  exhaustion.  The  friend  I 
have  previously  quoted  describes  the  genesis  of 
one.  Green  had  reached  the  town  of  Troyes 
early  one  morning  with  two  companions,  and 
immediately  started  off  to  explore  it,  darting 
hither  and  thither  through  the  streets  like  a  dog 
trying  to  find  a  scent.  In  two  or  three  hours  the 
examination  was  complete.  The  friends  lunched 
together,  took  the  train  on  to  Basel,  got  there 
late,  and  went  off  to  bed.  Green,  however,  wrote 
before  he  slept,  and  laid  on  the  breakfast-table 
next  morning,  an  article  on  Troyes,  in  which  its 
characteristic  features  were  brought  out  and  con¬ 
nected  with  its  fortunes  and  those  of  the  Counts 
of  Champagne  during  some  centuries,  an  article 
which  was  really  a  history  in  miniature.  Then  they 
went  out  together  to  look  at  Basel,  and  being  asked 
some  question  about  that  city  he  gave  on  the  spur 
of  the  moment  a  sketch  of  its  growth  and  character 
equally  vivid  and  equally  systematic,  grouping  all 


154  Biographical  Studies 

he  had  to  say  round  two  or  three  leading  theories. 
Yet  he  had  never  been  in  either  place  before,  and 
had  not  made  a  special  study  of  either.  He  could 
apparently  have  done  the  same  for  many  another 
town  in  France  or  the  Rhineland. 

Nothing  struck  one  so  much  in  daily  inter¬ 
course  with  him  as  his  passionate  interest  in 
human  life.  The  same  quickness  of  sympathy 
which  had  served  him  well  in  his  work  among 
the  East  End  poor,  enabled  him  to  pour  feeling 
into  the  figures  of  a  bygone  age,  and  become 
the  most  human,  and  in  so  far  the  most  real  and 
touching,  of  all  who  have  dealt  with  English 
history.  Whether  or  not  his  portraits  are  true, 
they  always  seem  to  breathe. 

Men  and  women  —  that  is  to  say,  such  of  them 
as  have  characteristics  pronounced  enough  to 
make  them  classifiable  —  may  be  divided  into 
those  whose  primary  interests  are  in  nature  and 
what  relates  to  nature,  and  those  whose  primary 
interests  are  in  and  for  man.  Green  was  the  most 
striking  type  I  have  known  of  the  latter  class, 
not  merely  because  his  human  interests  were 
strong,  but  also  because  they  excluded,  to  a 
degree  singular  in  a  mind  so  versatile,  interests 
in  purely  natural  things.  He  did  not  seem  to 
care  for  or  seek  to  know  any  of  the  sciences  of 
nature 1  except  in  so  far  as  they  bore  directly 

1  At  one  time,  however,  he  learnt  a  little  geology  from  his  friend 
Professor  Dawkins,  perceiving  its  bearings  on  history. 


John  Richard  Green  155 

upon  man’s  life,  and  were  capable  of  explaining 
it  or  of  serving  it.  He  had  a  keen  eye  for 
country,  for  the  direction  and  character  of  hills, 
the  position  and  influence  of  rivers,  forests,  and 
marshes,  of  changes  in  the  line  of  land  and  sea. 
Readers  of  The  Making  of  England  will  recall 
the  picture  of  the  physical  aspects  of  Britain  when 
the  Teutonic  invaders  entered  it  as  an  unsur¬ 
passed  piece  of  reconstructive  description.  So 
on  a  battle-field  or  in  an  historical  town,  his 
vision  of  the  features  of  the  ground  or  the  site 
was  unerring.  But  he  perceived  and  enjoyed 
natural  beauty  chiefly  in  reference  to  human  life. 
The  study  of  the  battle-field  and  the  town  site 
were  aids  to  the  comprehension  of  historical 
events.  The  exquisite  landscape  was  exquisite 
because  it  was  associated  with  the  people  dwelling 
there,  with  the  processes  of  their  political  growth, 
with  their  ideas  or  their  social  usages.  I  re¬ 
member  to  have  had  from  him  the  most  vivid 
descriptions  of  the  towns  of  the  Riviera  and 
of  Capri,  where  he  used  to  pass  the  winter,  but 
he  never  touched  on  anything  which  did  not 
illustrate  or  intertwine  itself  with  the  life  of  the 
people,  leaving  one  uninformed  on  matters  purely 
physical.  Facts  about  the  character  of  the 
mountains,  the  relation  of  their  ranges  to  one 
another,  or  their  rocks,  or  the  trees  and  flowers 
of  their  upper  regions,  the  prospects  their 
summits  command,  the  scenes  of  beauty  in  their 


156  Biographical  Studies 

glens,  or  beside  their  wood-embosomed  lakes, 
all,  in  fact,  which  the  mountain  lover  delights 
in,  and  which  are  to  him  a  part  of  the  mountain 
ardour,  of  the  passion  for  pure  nature  unsullied 
by  the  presence  of  man  —  all  this  was  cold  to 
him.  But  as  soon  as  a  touch  of  human  life  fell 
like  a  sunbeam  across  the  landscape,  all  became 
warm  and  lovable. 

It  was  the  same  with  art.  With  an  historian’s 
delight  in  the  creative  ages  and  their  work,  he 
had  a  fondness  for  painting  and  sculpture,  and 
could  so  describe  what  he  saw  in  the  galleries  and 
churches  of  Italy  as  to  bring  out  meanings  one 
had  not  perceived  before.  But  here,  too,  it  was 
the  human  element  that  fascinated  him.  Technical 
merits,  though  he  observed  them,  as  he  observed 
most  things,  were  forgotten  ;  he  dwelt  only  on 
what  the  picture  expressed  or  revealed.  Pure 
landscape  painting  gave  him  little  pleasure. 

It  seems  a  truism  to  say  that  one  who  writes 
history  ought  to  care  for  all  that  bears  upon 
man  in  the  present  in  order  that  he  may  com¬ 
prehend  what  bore  upon  him  in  the  past.  This 
roaring  loom  of  Time,  these  complex  physical 
and  moral  forces  playing  round  us,  and  driving 
us  hither  and  thither  by  such  a  strange  and 
intricate  interlacement  of  movements  that  we 
seem  to  perceive  no  more  than  what  is  next  us, 
and  are  unable  to  say  whither  we  are  tending, 
ought  to  be  always  before  the  historian’s  mind. 


John  Richard  Green  157 

But  there  are  few  who  have  tried,  as  Green 
tried,  to  follow  every  flash  of  the  shuttle,  and  to 
discover  a  direction  and  a  relation  amidst  appar¬ 
ent  confusion,  for  there  are  few  who  have  taken 
so  wide  a  view  of  the  historian’s  functions,  and 
have  so  distinctly  set  before  them  as  their  object 
the  comprehension  and  realisation  and  descrip¬ 
tion  of  the  whole  field  of  bygone  human  life. 
The  Past  was  all  present  to  him  in  this  sense, 
that  he  saw  and  felt  in  it  not  only  those  large 
events  which  annalists  or  state  papers  have  re¬ 
corded,  but  the  everyday  life  of  the  people,  their 
ideas,  their  habits,  their  external  surroundings. 
And  the  Present  was  always  as  if  past  to  him 
in  this  sense,  that  in  spite  of  his  strong  political 
feelings,  he  looked  at  it  with  the  eye  of  a 
philosophical  observer,  trying  to  disengage  prin¬ 
ciples  from  details,  permanent  tendencies  from 
passing  outbursts.  His  imagination  visualised, 
so  to  speak,  the  phenomena  as  in  a  picture;  his 
speculative  faculty  tried  to  harmonise  them, 
measure  them,  and  forecast  their  effects.  Hence 
it  was  a  necessity  to  him  to  know  what  was 
passing  in  the  world.  The  first  thing  he  did 
every  day,  whatever  other  pressure  there  might 
be  on  him,  was  to  read  the  daily  newspaper. 
The  last  thing  that  he  ceased  to  read,  when  what 
remained  of  life  began  to  be  counted  by  hours, 
was  the  daily  newspaper.  This  warm  interest  in 
mankind  is  the  keynote  of  his  History  of  the 


158  Biographical  Studies 

English  People.  It  is  the  whole  people  that  is 
ever  present  to  him,  as  it  had  been  present  before 
to  few  other  historians. 

Such  power  of  imagination  and  sympathy  as  I 
have  endeavoured  to  describe  is  enough  to  make 
a  brilliant  writer,  yet  not  necessarily  a  great 
historian.  One  must  see  how  far  the  other 
qualifications,  accuracy,  acuteness  of  observation, 
and  judgment,  are  also  brought  into  action. 

His  accuracy  has  been  much  impeached.  When 
the  first  burst  of  applause  that  welcomed  the 
Short  History  had  subsided,  several  critics  began 
to  attack  it  on  the  score  of  minor  errors.  They 
pointed  out  a  number  of  statements  of  fact  which 
were  doubtful,  and  others  which  were  incorrect, 
and  spread  in  some  quarters  the  impression  that 
Green  ivas  a  careless  and  untrustworthy  writer. 
I  do  not  deny  that  there  are  in  the  first  editions 
of  the  Short  History  some  assertions  made 
more  positively  than  the  evidence  warrants, 
some  pictures  drawn  from  exceedingly  slender 
materials.  Mr.  Skene  remarks  of  the  account 
given  of  the  battle  between  the  Jutes  and  the 
Britons  which  took  place  in  the  middle  of  the  fifth 
century,  somewhere  near  Aylesford  in  Kent,  and 
about  which  we  really  know  scarcely  anything, 
“  Mr.  Green  describes  it  as  if  he  had  been  present.” 
The  temptation  to  such  liberties  is  strong  where 
the  treatment  of  a  period  is  summary.  A  writer 
who  compresses  the  whole  history  of  England 


J59 


John  Richard  Green 

into  eight  hundred  pages  of  small  octavo,  making 
his  narrative  not  a  bare  narrative  but  a  picture 
full  of  colour  and  incident  —  incident  which,  for 
brevity’s  sake,  must  often  be  given  by  allusion  — 
cannot  be  always  interrupting  the  current  of  the 
story  to  indicate  doubts  or  quote  authorities  for 
every  statement  in  which  there  may  be  an 
element  of  conjecture ;  and  it  is  probable  that 
when  the  authorities  are  scrutinised  their  result 
will  sometimes  appear  different  from  that  which 
the  author  has  presented.  On  this  head  the 
Short  History  may  be  admitted  to  have  occasion¬ 
ally  purchased  vividity  at  the  price  of  exactitude. 
Of  mistakes,  strictly  so  called  —  i.e.  statements 
demonstrably  incorrect  and  therefore  ascribable 
to  haste  or  carelessness  —  there  are  enough  to 
make  a  show  under  the  hands  of  a  hostile  critic, 
yet  not  more  than  one  is  prepared  to  expect 
from  any  but  the  most  careful  scholars.  The 
book  falls  far  short  of  the  accuracy  of  Thirlwall 
or  Ranke  or  Stubbs,  short  even  of  the  accuracy 
of  Gibbon  or  Carlyle ;  but  it  is  not  greatly 
below  the  standard  of  Grote  or  Macaulay  or 
Robertson,  it  is  equal  to  the  standard  of  Milman, 
above  that  of  David  Hume.  I  take  famous 
names,  and  could  put  a  better  face  on  the  matter 
by  choosing  for  comparison  divers  contemporary 
writers  whose  literary  eminence  is  higher  than 
their  historical.  And  Green’s  mistakes,  although 
pretty  numerous,  were  (for  they  have  been  cor- 


160  Biographical  Studies 

rected  in  later  editions)  nearly  all  in  small  matters. 
He  puts  an  event,  let  us  say,  in  1340  which 
happened  in  the  November  of  1339;  he  calls  a 
man  John  whose  name  was  William.  These  are 
mistakes  to  the  eye  of  a  civil  service  examiner, 
but  they  seldom  make  any  difference  to  the 
general  reader,  for  they  do  not  affect  the  doctrines 
and  pictures  which  the  book  contains,  and  in 
which  lies  its  permanent  value  as  well  as  its  liter¬ 
ary  charm.  As  Bishop  Stubbs  says,  “  Like  other 
people,  Green  makes  mistakes  sometimes;  but 
scarcely  ever  does  the  correction  of  his  mistakes 
affect  either  the  essence  of  the  picture  or  the 
force  of  the  argument.  .  .  .  All  his  work  was 
real  and  original  work ;  few  people  besides  those 
who  knew  him  well  would  see  under  the  charming 
ease  and  vivacity  of  his  style  the  deep  research 
and  sustained  industry  of  the  laborious  student.” 
It  may  be  added  that  Green’s  later  and  more 
detailed  works,  The  Making  of  England  and 
The  Conquest  of  England ,  though  they  contain 
plenty  of  debatable  matter,  as  in  the  paucity 
of  authentic  data  any  such  book  must  do,  have 
been  charged  with  few  errors  in  matters  of 
fact. 

In  considering  his  critical  gift,  it  is  well  to  dis¬ 
tinguish  those  two  elements  of  acute  perception 
and  sober  judgment  which  I  have  already  specified, 
for  he  possessed  the  former  in  larger  measure  than 
the  latter.  The  same  activity  of  mind  which  made 


John  Richard  Green  161 

him  notice  everything  while  travelling  or  enter¬ 
ing  a  company  of  strangers,  played  incessantly 
upon  the  historical  data  of  his  work,  and  supplied 
him  with  endless  theories  as  to  the  meaning  of 
a  statement,  the  source  it  came  from,  the  way  it 
had  been  transmitted,  the  conditions  under  which 
it  was  made.  No  one  could  be  more  acute  and 
penetrating  in  what  the  Germans  call  Quellen- 
forschung,  the  collection  and  investigation  and 
testing  of  the  sources  of  history,  nor  could  any 
one  be  more  painstaking.  Errors  of  view,  apart 
from  those  trivial  inaccuracies  already  referred  to, 
did  not  arise  from  an  indolence  that  left  any 
stone  unturned,  but  rather  from  an  occupation 
with  the  leading  idea  which  had  drawn  his 
attention  away  from  the  details  of  time  and  place. 
The  ingenuity  with  which  he  built  up  theories 
was  as  admirable  as  the  art  with  which  he 
stated  them.  People  whom  that  art  fascinated 
sometimes  fancied  that  the  charm  lay  entirely  in 
the  style.  But  the  style  was  only  a  part  of  the 
craftsmanship.  The  facility  in  theorising,  the 
power  of  grouping  facts  under  new  aspects,  the 
skill  in  gathering  and  sifting  evidence,  were 
as  remarkable  as  those  artistic  qualities  which 
expressed  themselves  in  the  paragraphs  and 
sentences  and  phrases.  What  danger  there  was 
arose  from  this  fecundity.  His  mind  was  so 
fertile,  could  see  so  much  in  a  theory  and  apply 
it  so  dexterously,  that  his  judgment  was  some- 

M 


i  62  Biographical  Studies 

times  dazzled  by  the  brilliance  of  his  ingenuity. 
I  do  not  think  he  loved  his  theories  specially 
because  they  were  his  own,  for  he  often  modified 
them,  and  was  ready  to  consider  any  one  else’s 
suggestions ;  but  he  had  a  passion  for  light,  and 
when  a  new  view  seemed  to  him  to  explain  things 
previously  dark,  he  wanted  the  patience  to  sus¬ 
pend  his  judgment  and  abide  in  uncertainty. 
Some  of  his  hypotheses  he  himself  dropped. 
Some  others  he  probably  would  have  dropped, 
as  the  authorities  he  respected  have  not  embraced 
them.  Others  have  made  their  way  into  general 
acceptance,  and  may  become  still  more  useful  as 
future  research  works  them  out.  But,  whether 
right  or  wrong,  they  were  instructive.  Every 
one  of  them  is  based  upon  facts  whose  im¬ 
portance  had  not  been  so  fully  seen  before,  and 
suggests  a  point  of  view  worth  considering. 
Green’s  view  may  sometimes  appear  fanciful :  it 
is  never  foolish,  or  superficial,  or  perverse.  And 
so  far  from  being  credulous,  his  natural  tendency 
was  towards  doubt. 

Inventive  as  his  mind  was,  it  was  also  solvent 
and  sceptical.  Seldom  is  a  strong  imagination 
coupled  with  so  unsparing  a  criticism  as  that 
which  he  applied  to  the  materials  on  which  the 
constructive  faculty  had  to  work.  His  later 
tendencies  were  rather  towards  scepticism,  and 
towards  what  one  may  call  a  severe  and  ascetic 
view  of  history.  While  writing  The  Making  of 


John  Richard  Green  163 

England  and  The  Conquest  of  England ,  he  used 
to  lament  the  scantiness  of  the  data  and  the 
barren  dryness  which  he  feared  the  books  would 
consequently  show.  “  How  am  I  to  make  any¬ 
thing  of  these  meagre  entries  of  marches  and 
battles  which  are  the  only  materials  for  the  history 
of  whole  centuries?  Here  are  the  Norsemen 
and  Danes  ravaging  and  occupying  the  country ; 
we  learn  hardly  anything  about  them  from  English 
sources,  and  nothing  at  all  from  Danish.  How 
can  one  conceive  and  describe  them  ?  how  have 
any  comprehension  of  what  England  was  like  in 
the  districts  the  Northmen  took  and  ruled?”  I 
tried  to  get  him  to  work  at  the  Norse  Sagas,  and 
remember  in  particular  to  have  entreated  him 
when  he  came  to  the  battle  of  Brunanburh  to 
eke  out  the  pitifully  scanty  records  of  that  fight 
from  the  account  given  of  it  in  the  story  of 
the  Icelandic  hero,  Egil,  son  of  Skallagrim. 
But  he  answered  that  the  Saga  was  unhistorical, 
a  bit  of  legend  written  down  more  than  a 
century  after  the  events,  and  that  he  could  not, 
by  using  it  in  the  text,  appear  to  trust  it,  or  to 
mix  up  authentic  history  with  what  was  possibly 
fable.  It  was  urged  that  he  could  guard  him¬ 
self  in  a  note  from  being  supposed  to  take  it 
for  more  than  what  it  was,  a  most  picturesque 
embellishment  of  his  tale.  But  he  stood  firm. 
Throughout  these  two  last  books,  he  steadily 
refrained  from  introducing  any  matter,  however 


164  Biographical  Studies 

lively  or  romantic,  which  could  not  stand  the 
test  of  his  stringent  criticism,  and  used  laughingly 
to  tell  how  Dean  Stanley  had  long  ago  said  to 
him,  after  reading  one  of  his  earliest  pieces,  “  I 
see  you  are  in  danger  of  growing  picturesque. 
Beware  of  it.  I  have  suffered  for  it.” 

If  in  these  later  years  he  reined  in  his 
imagination  more  tightly,  the  change  was  due 
to  no  failing  in  his  ingenuity.  Nothing  in 
his  work  shows  higher  constructive  ability  than 
The  Making  of  England.  He  had  to  deal 
with  a  time  which  has  left  us  scarcely  any 
authentic  records,  and  to  piece  together  his  nar¬ 
rative  and  his  picture  of  the  country  out  of  these 
records,  and  the  indications,  faint  and  scattered, 
and  often  capable  of  several  interpretations,  which 
are  supplied  by  the  remains  of  Roman  roads  and 
villas,  the  names  of  places,  the  boundaries  of  local 
divisions,  the  casual  statements  of  writers  many 
centuries  later.  What  he  has  given  us  remains 
an  enduring  witness  to  his  historical  power. 
For  here  it  is  not  a  question  of  mere  brilliance 
of  style.  The  result  is  due  to  patience,  penetra¬ 
tion,  and  the  careful  weighing  of  evidence, 
joined  to  that  faculty  of  realising  things  in 
the  concrete  by  which  a  picture  is  conjured  up 
out  of  a  mass  of  phenomena,  everything  falling 
into  its  place  under  laws  which  seem  to  prove 
themselves  as  soon  as  they  are  stated. 

Of  his  style  nothing  need  be  said,  for  his 


John  Richard  Green  165 

readers  have  felt  its  charm.  But  it  deserves 
to  be  remarked  that  this  accomplished  master 
of  words  had  little  verbal  memory.  He  used 
to  say  that  he  could  never  recollect  a  phrase  in 
its  exact  form,  and  in  his  books  he  often  uncon¬ 
sciously  varied,  writing  from  memory,  some  ex¬ 
pression  whose  precise  form  is  on  record.  Nor 
had  he  any  turn  for  languages.  German  he  knew 
scarcely  at  all,  a  fact  which  makes  the  range  of  his 
historical  knowledge  appear  more  striking ;  and 
though  he  had  spent  several  winters  in  Italy,  he 
could  not  speak  Italian  except  so  far  as  he 
needed  it  for  the  inn  or  the  railway.  The  want 
of  mere  verbal  memory  partly  accounts  for  this 
deficiency,  but  it  was  not  unconnected  with  the 
vehemence  of  his  interest  in  the  substance  of 
things.  He  was  so  anxious  to  get  at  the  kernel 
that  he  could  not  stop  to  examine  the  nut.  In 
this  absence  of  linguistic  gifts,  as  well  as  in  the 
keenness  of  his  observation  (and  in  his  short¬ 
sightedness),  he  resembled  Dean  Stanley,  who, 
though  he  had  travelled  in  and  brought  back  all 
that  was  best  worth  knowing  from  every  country 
in  Europe,  had  no  facility  in  any  language  but  his 
own. 

Green  was  not  one  of  those  whose  personality 
is  unlike  their  books,  for  there  was  in  both 
the  same  fertility,  the  same  vivacity,  the  same 
quickness  of  sympathy.  Nevertheless,  his  con¬ 
versation  seemed  to  give  an  even  higher  impres- 


1 66  Biographical  Studies 

sion  of  intellectual  power  than  did  his  writings, 
because  it  was  so  swift  and  so  spontaneous. 
Such  talk  has  rarely  been  heard  in  our  time,  so 
gay  was  it,  so  vivid,  so  various,  so  full  of  anec¬ 
dote  and  illustration,  so  acute  in  criticism,  so 
candid  in  consideration,  so  graphic  in  descrip¬ 
tion,  so  abundant  in  sympathy,  so  flashing  in 
insight,  so  full  of  colour  and  emotion  as  well  as 
of  knowledge  and  thought.  One  had  to  forbid 
one’s  self  to  visit  him  in  the  evening,  because 
it  was  impossible  to  get  away  before  two  o’clock 
in  the  morning.  And,  unlike  many  famous 
talkers,  he  was  just  as  willing  to  listen  as  to 
speak.  One  of  the  charms  of  his  company 
was  that  it  made  a  man  feel  better  than  his 
ordinary  self.  His  appreciation  of  whatever  had 
any  worth  in  it,  his  comments  and  replies, 
so  stimulated  the  interlocutor’s  mind  that  it 
moved  faster  and  could  hit  upon  apter  ex¬ 
pressions  than  at  any  other  time.  The  same 
gifts  which  shone  in  his  conversation,  lucid 
arrangement  of  ideas,  ready  command  of  words, 
and  a  power  in  perceiving  the  tendencies  of 
those  whom  he  addressed,  would  have  made 
him  an  admirable  public  speaker.  I  do  not 
remember  that  he  ever  did  speak,  in  his  later 
years,  to  any  audience  larger  than  a  committee 
of  twenty.  But  he  was  an  eloquent  preacher. 
The  first  time  I  ever  saw  him  was  in  St.  Philip’s 
Church  at  Stepney  about  1866,  and  I  shall  never 


John  Richard  Green  167 

forget  the  impression  made  on  me  by  the  im¬ 
passioned  sentences  that  rang  through  the  church 
from  the  fiery  little  figure  in  the  pulpit  with  its 
thin  face  and  bright  black  eyes. 

What  Green  accomplished  seems  to  those  who 
used  to  listen  to  him  little  in  comparison  with 
what  he  might  have  done  had  longer  life  and  a 
more  robust  body  been  granted  him.  Some  of 
his  finest  gifts  would  not  have  found  their  full 
scope  till  he  came  to  treat  of  a  period  where  the 
materials  for  history  are  ample,  and  where  he 
could  have  allowed  himself  space  to  deal  with 
them  —  such  a  period,  for  instance,  as  that  of  his 
early  choice,  the  Angevin  kings  of  England. 
Yet,  even  basing  themselves  on  what  he  has 
done,  they  may  claim  for  him  a  place  among  the 
foremost  writers  of  his  time.  He  left  behind  him 
no  one  who  combined  so  many  of  the  best  gifts. 
There  were  among  his  contemporaries  historians 
more  learned  and  equally  industrious.  There  were 
two  or  three  whose  accuracy  was  more  scrupulous, 
their  judgment  more  uniformly  sober  and  cautious. 
But  there  was  no  one  in  whom  so  much  know¬ 
ledge  and  so  wide  a  range  of  interests  were  united 
to  such  ingenuity,  acuteness,  and  originality,  as 
well  as  to  such  a  power  of  presenting  results  in 
rich,  clear,  pictorial  language.  A  master  of  style 
may  be  a  worthless  historian.  We  have  instances. 
A  skilful  investigator  and  sound  reasoner  may  be 
unreadable.  The  conjunction  of  fine  gifts  for 


1 68  Biographical  Studies 

investigation  with  fine  gifts  for  exposition  is  a 
rare  conjunction,  which  cannot  be  prized  too 
highly,  for  while  it  advances  historical  science,  it 
brings  historical  methods,  as  well  as  historical 
facts,  within  the  horizon  of  the  ordinary  reader. 

Of  the  services  Green  rendered  to  English 
history,  the  first,  and  that  which  was  most 
promptly  appreciated,  was  the  intensity  with 
which  he  realised,  and  the  skill  with  which  he 
portrayed,  the  life  of  the  people  of  England  as 
a  whole,  and  taught  his  readers  that  the  exploits 
of  kings  and  the  intrigues  of  ministers,  and  the 
struggles  of  parties  in  Parliament,  are,  after  all, 
secondary  matters,  and  important  chiefly  as  they 
affect  the  welfare  or  stimulate  the  thoughts  and 
feelings  of  the  great  mass  of  undistinguished 
humanity  in  whose  hands  the  future  of  a  nation 
lies.  He  changed  the  old-fashioned  distribution 
of  our  annals  according  to  reigns  and  dynasties 
into  certain  periods,  showing  that  such  divisions 
often  obscure  the  true  connection  of  events,  and 
suggesting  new  and  better  conceptions  of  the 
periods  into  which  the  record  of  English  progress 
naturally  falls.  And,  lastly,  he  laid,  in  his  latest 
books,  a  firm  and  enduring  foundation  for  our 
mediaeval  history  by  that  account  of  the  Teutonic 
occupation  of  England,  of  the  state  of  the  country 
as  they  found  it,  and  the  way  they  conquered  and 
began  to  organise  it,  which  I  have  already  dwelt 
on  as  a  signal  proof  of  his  constructive  faculty. 


John  Richard  Green  169 

Many  readers  will  be  disposed  to  place  him 
near  Macaulay,  for  though  he  was  less  weighty 
he  was  more  subtle,  and  not  less  fascinating.  To 
fewer  perhaps  will  it  occur  to  compare  him  with 
Gibbon,  yet  I  am  emboldened  by  the  opinion  of 
one  of  our  greatest  contemporary  historians  to 
venture  on  the  comparison.  There  are  indeed 
wide  differences  between  the  two.  Green  is 
as  completely  a  man  of  the  nineteenth  century 
as  Gibbon  was  a  man  of  the  eighteenth.  Green’s 
style  has  not  the  majestic  march  of  Gibbon :  it 
is  quick  and  eager  almost  to  restlessness.  Nor  is 
his  judgment  so  uniformly  grave  and  sound. 
But  one  may  find  in  his  genius  what  was 
characteristic  of  Gibbon’s  also,  the  combination 
of  a  mastery  of  multitudinous  details,  with  a  large 
and  luminous  view  of  those  far-reaching  forces  and 
relations  which  govern  the  fortunes  of  peoples  and 
guide  the  course  of  empire.  This  width  and  com¬ 
prehensiveness,  this  power  of  massing  for  the  pur¬ 
poses  of  argument  the  facts  which  his  literary 
art  has  just  been  clothing  in  its  most  brilliant 
hues,  is  the  highest  of  a  historian’s  gifts,  and  is 
the  one  which  seems  most  surely  to  establish 
Green’s  position  among  the  leading  historical 
minds  of  his  time. 


SIR  GEORGE  JESSEL,  MASTER  OF 
THE  ROLLS 


There  is  hardly  any  walk  of  English  life  in 
which  brilliant  abilities  win  so  little  fame  for 
their  possessor  among  the  public  at  large  as 
that  of  practice  at  the  Chancery  bar.  A 
leading  ecclesiastic,  or  physician,  or  surgeon, 
or  financier,  or  manufacturer,  or  even  a  great 
man  of  science,  unless  his  work  is  done  in  some 
sphere  which,  like  pure  mathematics,  is  far 
removed  from  the  comprehension  of  ordinary 
educated  men,  is  sure,  in  a  time  like  ours,  to 
become  well  known  to  the  world  and  acquire 
influence  in  it.  A  great  advocate  practising  in 
the  Common-law  Courts  is,  of  course,  still  more 
certain  to  become  a  familiar  figure.  But  the 
cases  which  are  dealt  with  by  the  Courts  of 
Equity,  though  they  often  involve  vast  sums  of 
money  and  raise  intricate  and  important  points 
of  law,  mostly  turn  on  questions  of  a  technical 
kind,  and  are  seldom  what  the  newspapers  call 
sensational.  Thus  it  may  happen  that  a  practi¬ 
tioner  or  a  judge  in  these  Courts  enjoys  an 


170 


Sir  George  Jessel  17  1 

extraordinary  reputation  within  his  profession, 
and  is  by  them  regarded  as  one  of  the  ornaments 
of  his  time,  while  the  rest  of  his  fellow-country¬ 
men  know  nothing  at  all  about  his  merits. 

This  was  the  case  with  Sir  George  Jessel, 
though  towards  the  end  of  his  career  the  admira¬ 
tion  which  the  Bar  felt  for  his  powers  began  so 
far  to  filter  through  to  the  general  public  that 
his  premature  death  was  felt  to  be  a  national 
misfortune. 

Jessel  (born  in  1824,  died  in  1883)  was  only 
one  among  many  instances  England  has  lately 
seen  of  men  of  Jewish  origin  climbing  to  the 
highest  distinction.  But  he  was  the  first  instance 
of  a  Jew  who,  continuing  to  adhere  to  the  creed  of 
his  forefathers,  received  a  very  high  office  ;  for  Mr. 
Disraeli,  as  every  one  knows,  had  been  baptized 
as  a  boy,  and  always  professed  to  be  a  Christian. 
Jessel’s  career  was  not  marked  by  any  remarkable 
incidents.  He  rose  quickly  to  eminence  at  the  bar, 
being  in  this  aided  by  his  birth;  for  the  Jews  in 
London,  as  elsewhere,  hold  together.  There  are 
among  them  many  solicitors  in  large  practice,  and 
these  take  a  natural  pleasure  in  pushing  forward 
any  specially  able  member  of  their  community. 
His  powers  were  more  fully  seen  and  appreciated 
when  he  became  (in  1865)  a  Queen’s  Counsel, 
and  brought  him  with  unusual  speed  to  the  front 
rank.  He  came  into  Parliament  at  the  general 
election  of  1868  on  the  Liberal  side,  and  three 


172  Biographical  Studies 

years  later  was  made  Solicitor-General  in  Mr. 
Gladstone’s  first  Government,  retaining,  as  was 
then  usual,  his  private  practice,  which  had  become 
so  large  that  there  was  scarcely  any  case  of 
first-rate  importance  brought  into  the  Chancery 
Courts  in  which  he  did  not  appear.  Although 
a  decided  Liberal,  as  the  Jews  mostly  were 
until  Lord  Beaconsfield’s  foreign  policy  had 
begun  to  lead  them  into  other  paths,  he  had 
borne  little  part  in  politics  till  he  took  his 
seat  in  the  House  of  Commons;  and  when 
he  spoke  there,  he  obtained  no  great  success. 
Lawyers  in  the  English  Parliament  are  under  the 
double  disadvantage  of  having  had  less  leisure 
than  most  other  members  to  study  and  follow 
political  questions,  and  of  having  contracted  a 
manner  and  style  of  speaking  not  suited  to  an 
assembly  which,  though  deliberative,  is  not  de¬ 
liberate,  and  which  listens  with  impatience  to  a 
technical  or  forensic  method  of  treating  the  topics 
which  come  before  it. 

Jessel’s  ability  would  have  soon  overcome 
the  former  difficulty,  but  less  easily  the  latter. 
Though  he  was  lucid  and  powerful  in  his  treat¬ 
ment  of  legal  topics,  and  made  a  quite  admirable 
law  officer  in  the  way  of  advising  ministers  and 
the  public  departments,  he  was  never  popular 
with  the  House  of  Commons,  for  he  presented 
his  views  in  a  hard,  dry,  dogmatic  form,  with  no 
graces  of  style  or  delivery.  However,  he  did 


1  73 


Sir  George  Jessel 

not  long  remain  in  that  arena,  but  on  the  retire¬ 
ment  of  Lord  Romilly  from  the  office  of  Master  of 
the  Rolls,  was  in  1873  appointed  to  succeed  him. 
In  this  post  his  extraordinary  gifts  found  their 
amplest  sphere.  The  equity  judges  in  England 
used  always  to  sit,  and  in  nearly  all  cases  do  still 
sit,  without  a  jury  to  hear  causes,  with  or  without 
witnesses,  and  they  despatch  a  great  deal  of  the 
heaviest  business  that  is  brought  into  the  courts. 
Commercial  causes  of  the  first  importance  come 
before  them,  no  less  than  those  which  relate  to 
trusts  or  to  real  property ;  and  the  granting  of 
injunctions,  a  specially  serious  matter,  rests  chiefly 
in  their  hands.  Each  equity  judge  sits  alone, and 
the  suitor  may  choose  before  which  of  them  he  will 
bring  his  case.  Among  the  four  —  a  number  sub¬ 
sequently  increased  to  five  —  equity  judges  of  first 
instance,  Jessel  immediately  rose  to  the  highest 
reputation,  so  that  most  of  the  heavy  and  difficult 
cases  were  brought  into  his  court.  He  possessed 
a  wonderfully  quick,  as  well  as  powerful,  mind, 
which  got  to  the  kernel  of  a  matter  while  other 
people  were  still  hammering  at  the  shell,  and 
which  applied  legal  principles  just  as  swiftly  and 
surely  as  it  mastered  a  group  of  complicated  facts. 

The  Rolls  Court  used  to  present,  while  he 
presided  over  it,  a  curious  and  interesting  sight, 
which  led  young  counsel,  who  had  no  business 
to  do  there,  to  frequent  it  for  the  mere  sake  of 
watching  the  Judge.  When  the  leading  counsel 


174  Biographical  Studies 

for  the  plaintiff  was  opening  his  case,  Jessel 
listened  quietly  for  the  first  few  minutes  only, 
and  then  began  to  address  questions  to  the 
counsel,  at  first  so  as  to  guide  his  remarks  in  a 
particular  direction,  then  so  as  to  stop  his  course 
altogether  and  turn  his  speech  into  a  series  of 
answers  to  the  Judge’s  interrogatories.  When, 
by  a  short  dialogue  of  this  kind,  Jessel  had 
possessed  himself  of  the  vital  facts,  he  would 
turn  to  the  leading  counsel  for  the  defendant 
and  ask  him  whether  he  admitted  such  and  such 
facts  alleged  by  the  plaintiff  to  be  true.  If  these 
facts  were  admitted,  the  Judge  proceeded  to 
indicate  the  view  he  was  disposed  to  take  of  the 
law  applicable  to  the  facts,  and,  by  a  few  more 
questions  to  the  counsel  on  the  one  side  or  the 
other,  as  the  case  might  be,  elicited  their  re¬ 
spective  legal  grounds  of  contention.  If  the  facts 
were  not  admitted,  it  of  course  became  neces¬ 
sary  to  call  the  witnesses  or  read  the  affidavits, 
processes  which  the  vigorous  impatience  of 
the  Judge  considerably  shortened,  for  it  was  a 
dangerous  thing  to  read  to  him  any  irrelevant 
or  loosely  drawn  paragraph.  But  more  generally 
his  searching  questions  and  the  sort  of  pressure 
he  applied  so  cut  down  the  issues  of  fact  that 
there  was  little  or  nothing  left  in  controversy 
regarding  which  it  was  necessary  to  examine  the 
evidence  in  detail,  since  the  counsel  felt  that 
there  was  no  use  in  putting  before  him  a  conten- 


1 75 


Sir  George  Jessel 

tion  which  they  could  not  sustain  under  the  fire 
of  his  criticism.  Then  Jessel  proceeded  to  deliver 
his  opinion  and  dispose  of  the  case.  The  affair 
was  from  beginning  to  end  far  less  an  argument 
and  counter-argument  by  counsel  than  an  in¬ 
vestigation  directly  conducted  by  the  Judge  him¬ 
self,  in  which  the  principal  function  of  the  counsel 
was  to  answer  the  Judge’s  questions  concisely 
and  exactly,  so  that  the  latter  might  as  soon  as 
possible  get  to  the  bottom  of  the  matter.  The 
Bar  in  a  little  while  came  to  learn  and  adapt 
themselves  to  his  ways,  and  few  complained  of 
being  stopped  or  interrupted  by  him,  because 
his  interruptions,  unlike  those  of  some  judges, 
were  neither  inopportune  nor  superfluous.  The 
counsel  (with  scarcely  an  exception)  felt  them¬ 
selves  his  inferiors,  and  recognised  not  only  that 
he  was  better  able  to  handle  the  case  than  they 
were,  but  that  the  manner  and  style  in  which  they 
presented  their  facts  or  arguments  would  make 
little  difference  to  the  result,  because  his  penetra¬ 
tion  was  sure  to  discover  the  merits  of  each  con 
tention,  and  neither  eloquence  nor  pertinacity 
would  have  the  slightest  effect  on  his  resolute 
and  self-confident  mind.  Thus  business  was 
despatched  before  him  with  unexampled  speed, 
and  it  became  a  maxim  among  barristers  that, 
however  low  down  in  the  cause-list  at  the 
Rolls  your  cause  might  stand,  it  was  never 
safe  to  be  away  from  the  court,  so  rapidly 


176  Biographical  Studies 

were  cases  “  crumpled  up  ”  or  “  broken  down  ” 
under  the  blows  of  this  vigorous  intellect. 
It  was  more  surprising  that  the  suitors,  as  well 
as  the  Bar  and  the  public  generally,  acquiesced, 
after  the  first  few  months,  in  this  way  of 
doing  business.  Nothing  breeds  more  dis¬ 
content  than  haste  and  heedlessness  in  a  judge. 
But  Jessel’s  speed  was  not  haste.  He  did  as 
much  justice  in  a  day  as  others  could  do  in  a 
week ;  and  those  few  who,  dissatisfied  with  these 
rapid  methods,  tried  to  reverse  his  decisions  before 
the  Court  of  Appeal,  were  very  seldom  successful, 
although  that  court  then  contained  in  Lord  Justice 
James  and  Lord  Justice  Mellish  two  unusually 
strong  men,  who  would  not  have  hesitated  to 
differ  even  from  the  redoubtable  Master  of  the 
Rolls. 

As  I  have  mentioned  Lord  Justice  Mellish,  I 
may  turn  aside  for  a  moment  to  say  a  word  re¬ 
garding  that  extraordinary  man,  who  stood  along 
with  Cairns  and  Roundell  Palmer  in  the  fore¬ 
most  rank  of  Jessel’s  professional  contemporaries. 
Mellish  held  for  some  years  before  his  elevation 
to  the  Bench  in  1869  a  position  unique  at  the 
English  Common-law  Bar  as  a  giver  of  opinions 
on  points  of  law.  As  the  Israelites  in  King 
David’s  day  said  of  Ahithophel  that  his  counsel 
was  as  if  a  man  had  inquired  at  the  oracle  of 
God,1  so  the  legal  profession  deemed  Mellish 

1  2  Sam.  xvi.  23. 


Sir  George  Jessel  177 

practically  infallible,  and  held  an  opinion  signed 
by  him  to  be  equal  in  weight  to  a  judgment  of 
the  Court  of  Exchequer  Chamber  (the  then  court 
of  appeal  in  common-law  cases).  He  was  not 
effective  as  an  advocate  addressing  a  jury,  being 
indeed  far  too  good  for  any  jury ;  but  in  arguing 
a  point  of  law  his  unerring  logic,  the  lucidity 
with  which  he  stated  his  position,  the  cogency 
and  precision  with  which  he  drew  his  inferences, 
made  it  a  delight  to  listen  to  him.  The  chain  of 
ratiocination  seemed  irrefragable : 

’’Ey  S’  WtT  aKfioOtToj  fxeyav  olk/xov a,  kotttc  Sc  Sar/iov s 

’A ppr)KTOv%  aArirous,  (fj-irtSov  avdi  fievoiev.1 

He  had,  indeed,  but  one  fault  as  an  arguer.  He 
could  not  argue  a  point  whose  soundness  he 
doubted  as  effectively  as  one  in  which  he  had 
faith ;  and  when  it  befell  that  several  points  arose 
in  a  case,  and  the  Court  seemed  disposed  to  lay 
more  stress  on  the  one  for  which  he  cared  little 
than  on  the  one  he  deemed  conclusive,  he  refused 
to  fall  in  with  their  view  and  continued  to  insist 
upon  that  which  his  own  mind  approved. 

I  remember  to  have  once  heard  him  and 
Cairns  argue  before  the  House  of  Lords  (sitting 
as  the  final  Court  of  Appeal)  a  case  relating 
to  a  vessel  called  the  Alexandra  —  it  was  a  case 


1  Odyss.  viii.  274  :  “  And  upon  the  anvil-stand  he  set  the  mighty 
anvil ;  and  he  forged  the  links  that  could  be  neither  broken  nor  loosed,  so 
that  they  should  stay  firm  in  their  place.” 


N 


178  Biographical  Studies 

arising  out  of  an  attempt  of  the  Confederates, 
during  the  American  War  of  Secession,  to  get 
out  of  a  British  port  a  cruiser  they  had  ordered. 
Cairns  spoke  first  with  all  his  usual  power,  and 
seemed  to  have  left  nothing  to  be  added.  But 
when  Mellish  followed  on  the  same  side,  he  set 
his  points  in  so  strong  a  light,  and  placed  his 
contention  on  so  solid  a  basis,  that  even  Cairns’s 
speech  was  forgotten,  and  it  seemed  impossible 
that  any  answer  could  be  found  to  Mellish’s 
arguments.  One  felt  as  if  the  voice  of  pure 
reason  were  speaking  through  his  lips. 

Such  an  intellect  might  seem  admirably  quali¬ 
fied  for  judicial  work.  But  as  a  judge,  Mellish, 
admirable  though  he  was  in  temper,  in  fairness,  in 
learning,  and  in  logic,  did  not  win  so  exceptional  a 
reputation  as  he  had  won  at  the  Bar.  People  used 
to  ascribe  this  partly  to  his  weak  health,  partly 
to  the  fact  that  he,  who  had  been  a  common-law 
practitioner,  was  sitting  in  a  court  which  heard 
equity  appeals,  and  alongside  of  a  quick  and 
strong  colleague  reared  in  the  equity  courts.1 
But  something  may  have  been  due  to  the  fact 
that  he  needed  the  stimulus  of  conflict  to  bring 
out  the  full  force  of  his  splendid  intelligence. 
A  circumstance  attending  the  appointment  of 


1  Lord  Justice  James  said  of  his  colleague  that  he  had  only  one 
defect  as  a  judge  :  “  He  was  too  anxious  to  convince  counsel  that  they 
were  wrong,  when  he  thought  their  contention  unsound,  seeming  to 
forget  that  counsel  are  paid  not  to  be  convinced.” 


Sir  George  Jessel  179 

Mellish  illustrates  the  remark  already  made 
that  a  great  counsel  whose  work  lies  apart 
from  so-called  “  sensation  cases  ”  may  remain 
unknown  to  his  contemporaries.  When  Mr. 
Gladstone,  being  then  Prime  Minister,  and 
having  to  select  a  Lord  Justice  of  Appeal, 
was  told  that  Mellish  was  the  fittest  man  for 
the  post,  he  asked,  “  Can  that  be  the  boy 
who  was  my  fag  at  Eton?”  He  had  not 
heard  of  Mellish  during  the  intervening  forty 
years ! 

However,  I  return  to  the  Master  of  the  Rolls. 
In  dealing  with  facts,  Jessel  has  never  had  a 
superior,  and  in  our  days,  perhaps,  no  rival.  He 
knew  all  the  ways  of  the  financial  and  commercial 
world.  In  his  treatment  of  points  of  law,  every 
one  admitted  and  admired  both  an  extraordinary 
knowledge  and  mastery  of  reported  cases,  and 
an  extremely  acute  and  exact  appreciation  of 
principles,  a  complete  power  of  extracting  them 
from  past  cases  and  fitting  them  to  the  case  in 
hand.  He  had  a  memory  which  forgot  nothing,  and 
which,  indeed,  wearied  him  by  refusing  to  forget 
trivial  things.  When  he  delivered  an  elaborate 
judgment  it  was  his  delight  to  run  through  a  long 
series  of  cases,  classifying  and  distinguishing 
them.  His  strength  made  him  bold;  he  went 
further  than  most  judges  in  readiness  to  carry 
a  principle  somewhat  beyond  any  decided  case, 
and  to  overrule  an  authority  which  he  did  not 


180  Biographical  Studies 

respect.  The  fault  charged  on  him  was  his 
tendency,  perhaps  characteristic  of  the  Hebrew 
mind,  to  take  a  somewhat  hard  and  dry  view 
of  a  legal  principle,  overlooking  its  more  deli¬ 
cate  shades,  and,  in  the  interpretation  of 
statutes  or  documents,  to  adhere  too  strictly  to 
the  letter,  overlooking  the  spirit.  An  eminent 
lawyer  said,  “If  all  judges  had  been  like 
Jessel,  there  might  have  been  no  equity.”  In 
that  respect  many  deemed  him  inferior  to 
Lord  Cairns,  the  greatest  judge  among  his  con¬ 
temporaries,  who  united  to  an  almost  equally 
wide  and  accurate  knowledge  of  the  law  a  grasp 
of  principles  even  more  broad  and  philosophical 
than  Jessel’s  wras.  Be  this  as  it  may,  the 
judgments  of  the  Master  of  the  Rolls,  which 
fill  so  many  pages  of  the  recent  English  Law 
Reports,  are  among  the  best  that  have  ever  gone 
to  build  up  the  fabric  of  the  English  law.  Except 
on  twro  occasions,  when  he  reserved  judgment 
at  the  request  of  his  colleagues  in  the  Court 
of  Appeal,  they  vrere  delivered  on  the  spur  of 
the  moment,  after  the  conclusion  of  the  argu¬ 
ments,  or  of  so  much  of  the  arguments  as  he 
allowed  counsel  to  deliver ;  but  they  have  all  the 
merits  of  carefully-considered  utterances,  so  clear 
and  direct  is  their  style,  so  concisely  as  wrell  as 
cogently  are  the  authorities  discussed  and  the 
grounds  of  decision  stated.  The  bold  and  sweep¬ 
ing  character  w'hich  often  belongs  to  them  makes 


Sir  George  Jessel  181 

them  more  instructive  as  well  as  more  agreeable 
reading  than  the  judgments  of  most  modern 
judges,  whose  commonest  fault  is  a  timidity 
which  tries  to  escape,  by  dwelling  on  the  de¬ 
tails  of  the  particular  case,  from  the  enunciation 
of  a  definite  general  principle.  Positive  and 
definite  Jessel  always  was.  As  he  put  it  him¬ 
self  :  “  I  may  be  wrong,  but  I  never  have  any 
doubts.” 

At  the  Bar,  Jessel  had  been  far  from  popular; 
for  his  manners  were  unpolished,  and  his  con¬ 
duct  towards  other  counsel  overbearing.  On  the 
Bench  he  improved,  and  became  liked  as  well  as 
respected.  There  was  a  sort  of  rough  bonhomie 
about  him,  and  though  he  could  be  disagreeable 
on  occasions  to  a  leading  counsel,  especially  if 
brought  from  the  common-law  bar  into  his  court, 
he  showed  a  good-humoured  wish  to  deal  gently 
with  young  or  inexperienced  barristers.  There 
was  also  an  obvious  anxiety  to  do  justice,  an 
impatience  of  mere  technicalities,  and  a  readiness, 
remarkable  in  so  strong-willed  a  man,  to  hear 
what  could  be  said  against  his  own  opinion,  and 
to  reconsider  it.  Besides,  a  profession  is  naturally 
proud  of  any  one  whose  talents  adorn  it,  and 
whose  eminence  seems  to  be  communicated  to 
the  whole  body. 

Ever  since,  under  the  Plantagenet  kings,  the 
Chancery  became  a  law  court,  the  office  of  Mas¬ 
ter  of  the  Rolls  had  been  that  of  a  judge  of  first 


i  82  Biographical  Studies 

instance.  In  1881  its  character  was  changed, 
and  its  occupant  placed  at  the  head  of  the 
Court  of  Appeal.  Thus  it  was  as  an  appellate 
judge  that  Jessel  latterly  sat,  giving  no  less 
satisfaction  in  that  capacity  than  in  his  former 
one,  and  being  indeed  confessedly  the  strongest 
judicial  intellect  (except  Lord  Cairns)  on  the 
Bench.  Outside  his  professional  duties,  his  chief 
interest  was  in  the  University  of  London,  at 
which  he  had  himself  graduated.  He  was  a 
member  of  its  senate,  and  busied  himself  with  its 
examinations,  being  up  till  the  last  excessively 
fond  of  work,  and  finding  that  of  a  judge  who 
sits  for  five  or  six  hours  daily  insufficient  to 
satisfy  his  appetite.  He  was  not  what  would 
be  called  a  highly  cultivated  man,  although  he 
knew  a  great  deal  beyond  the  field  of  law, 
mathematics,  for  instance,  and  Hebrew  literature 
and  botany,  for  he  had  been  brought  up  in  a 
not  very  refined  circle,  and  had  been  absorbed 
in  legal  work  during  the  best  years  of  his  life. 
But  his  was  an  intelligence  of  extraordinary  power 
and  flexibility,  eminently  practical,  as  the  Semitic 
intellect  generally  is,  and  yet  thoroughly  scientific. 
And  he  was  also  one  of  those  strong  natures  who 
make  themselves  disliked  while  they  are  fighting 
their  way  to  the  top,  but  grow  more  genial  and 
more  tolerant  when  they  have  won  what  they 
sought,  and  perceive  that  others  admit  their  pre¬ 
eminence.  The  services  which  he  rendered  as  a 


Sir  George  Jessel  183 

judge  illustrate  not  only  the  advantage  of  throw¬ 
ing  open  all  places  to  all  comers  —  the  bigotry  of 
an  elder  day  excluded  the  Jews  from  judicial  office 
altogether  —  but  also  the  benefit  of  having  a  judge 
at  least  equal  in  ability  to  the  best  of  those  who 
practise  before  him.  It  was  because  Jessel  was 
so  easily  master  in  his  court  that  so  large  and 
important  a  part  of  the  judicial  business  of  the 
country  was,  during  many  years,  despatched  with 
a  swiftness  and  a  success  seldom  equalled  in  the 
annals  of  the  English  Courts. 


LORD  CHANCELLOR  CAIRNS 


Hugh  M‘Calmont  Cairns,  afterwards  Earl 
Cairns  (born  1819,  died  1885),  was  one  of  three 
remarkable  Scoto- Irishmen  whom  the  north-east 
corner  of  Ulster  gave  to  the  United  Kingdom 
in  one  generation,  and  each  of  whom  was  fore¬ 
most  in  the  career  he  entered.  Lord  Lawrence 
was  the  strongest  of  Indian  or  Colonial  adminis¬ 
trators,  and  did  more  than  any  other  man  to 
save  India  for  England  in  the  crisis  of  the  great 
Mutiny  of  1857.  Lord  Kelvin  has  been,  since  the 
death  of  Charles  Darwin,  the  first  among  British 
men  of  science.  Lord  Cairns  was  unquestionably 
the  greatest  judge  of  the  Victorian  epoch,  perhaps 
of  the  nineteenth  century.1  His  name  and  family 
were  of  Scottish  origin,  but  he  combined  with  the 
shrewd  sense  and  grim  persistency  of  Scotland 
some  measure  of  the  keen  partisanship  which 
marks  the  Irish  Orangeman.  Born  an  Episco- 

1  No  biography  of  Lord  Cairns  has  (so  far  as  I  know)  appeared  —  a 
singular  fact,  considering  the  brilliancy  of  his  career,  and  considering  the 
tendency  which  now  prevails  to  bestow  this  kind  of  honour  on  many 
persons  of  the  second  or  even  the  third  rank.  One  reason  may  be  that 
Cairns,  great  though  he  was,  never  won  personal  popularity  even  with  his 
own  political  party  or  among  his  contemporaries  at  the  bar,  and  was  to  the 
general  public  no  more  than  a  famous  name. 

184 


Lord  Chancellor  Cairns  185 

palian,  he  grew  up  a  Tory  in  politics,  an  earnest 
Low-Church  Evangelical  in  religion ;  nor  did  his 
opinions  in  either  respect  ever  seem  to  alter 
during  his  long  life.  His  great  abilities  were 
perceived  both  at  school  (he  was  educated  at 
the  Academy  in  Belfast)  and  at  college  (Trinity 
College,  Dublin),  and  so  much  impressed  the 
counsel  in  whose  chambers  he  studied  for  a 
year  in  London,  that  he  strongly  dissuaded  the 
young  man  from  returning  to  Dublin  to  practise 
at  the  Irish  bar,  promising  him  a  brilliant  career 
on  the  wider  theatre  of  England.  The  prediction 
was  verified  by  the  rapidity  with  which  Cairns, 
who  had,  no  doubt,  the  advantage  of  influential 
connections  in  the  City  of  London,  rose  into 
note.  He  obtained  (as  a  Conservative)  a  seat 
in  Parliament  for  his  native  town  of  Belfast 
when  only  thirty-three  years  of  age,  and  was 
appointed  Solicitor-General  to  Lord  Derby’s 
second  Ministry  six  years  later  —  a  post  which 
few  eminent  lawyers  have  reached  before  fifty. 
In  the  House  of  Commons,  though  at  first 
somewhat  diffident  and  nervous,  he  soon  proved 
himself  a  powerful  as  well  as  ready  speaker,  and 
would  doubtless  have  remained  in  an  assembly 
where  he  was  rendering  such  valuable  services 
to  his  party  but  for  the  weakness  of  his  lungs 
and  throat,  which  had  threatened  his  life  since 
boyhood.  He  therefore  accepted,  in  1867,  the 
office  of  Lord  Justice  of  Appeal,  with  a  seat  in 


i  86  Biographical  Studies 

the  House  of  Lords,  and  next  year  was  made 
Lord  Chancellor  by  Mr.  Disraeli,  then  Prime 
Minister,  who  dismissed  Lord  Chelmsford,  then 
Chancellor,  in  order  to  have  the  benefit  of  Cairns’s 
help  as  a  colleague.  Disraeli  subsequently  caused 
him  to  be  raised  to  an  earldom. 

After  Lord  Derby’s  death,  Cairns  led  the 
Tory  party  in  the  House  of  Lords  for  a  time 
(replacing  the  Duke  of  Richmond  when  the  latter 
quitted  the  leadership),  but  his  very  pronounced 
Low-Church  proclivities,  coupled  perhaps  with  a 
certain  jealousy  felt  toward  him  as  a  newcomer, 
prevented  him  from  becoming  popular  there,  so 
that  ultimately  the  leadership  of  that  House  settled 
itself  in  the  hands  of  Lord  Salisbury,  a  statesman 
not  superior  to  Cairns  in  political  judgment  or 
argumentative  power,  but  without  the  disadvan¬ 
tage  of  being  a  lawyer,  possessing  a  wider  range 
of  political  experience,  and  in  closer  sympathy 
with  the  feelings  and  habits  of  the  titled  order. 
There  were,  however,  some  peers  who,  when 
Lord  Beaconsfield  died  in  1881,  desired  to  see 
Cairns  chosen  to  succeed  him  in  the  leadership 
of  the  Tory  party,  then  in  opposition,  in  the 
Upper  Chamber.  Whether  in  opposition  or  in 
power,  Cairns  took  a  prominent  part  in  all  “  full- 
dress  ”  political  debates  in  the  House  of  Lords 
and  in  the  discussion  of  legal  measures,  and  was 
indeed  so  absolutely  master  of  the  Chamber  when 
such  measures  came  under  discussion,  that  the 


Lord  Chancellor  Cairns  187 

Liberal  Government,  during  the  years  from  1868 
to  1874,  and  again  from  1880  till  1885,  could 
carry  no  legal  reforms  through  the  House  of 
Lords  except  by  his  permission,  which,  of 
course,  was  never  given  when  such  reforms 
could  seem  to  affect  any  political  issue.  Yet 
the  vehemence  of  his  party  feeling  did  not  over¬ 
cast  his  judgment.  It  was  mainly  through  his 
interposition  (aided  by  that  of  Archbishop  Tait) 
that  the  House  of  Lords  consented  to  pass  the 
Irish  Church  Bill  of  1869,  a  measure  which 
Cairns,  of  course  heartily  disliking  it,  accepted 
for  the  sake  of  saving  to  the  disestablished 
Church  a  part  of  her  funds,  since  these  might 
have  been  lost  had  the  Bill  been  rejected  then 
and  passed  next  year  by  an  angrier  House  of 
Commons.  Of  all  the  members  of  Disraeli’s 
two  Cabinets,  he  was  the  one  whom  Disraeli 
himself  had  been  wont  most  to  trust  and 
most  to  rely  on.  In  January  1874,  when  Mr. 
Gladstone’s  suddenly  announced  dissolution  of 
Parliament  startled  all  England  one  Saturday 
morning,  Disraeli,  who  heard  of  it  while  still  in 
bed,  was  at  first  frightened,  thinking  that  the 
Liberal  leader  had  played  his  cards  boldly  and 
well,  and  would  carry  the  elections.  When  his 
chief  party  manager  came  to  see  him  he  was 
found  restless  and  dejected,  and  cried  out,  “  Send 
for  Cairns  at  once.”  Lord  Cairns  was  sent  for, 
came  full  of  vigour,  hope,  and  counsel,  and  after 


i  88  Biographical  Studies 

an  hour’s  talk  so  restored  the  confidence  of  his 
ally  that  Disraeli  sat  down  in  the  best  spirits  to 
compose  his  electoral  manifesto.  As  everybody 
knows,  Cairns’s  forecast  was  right,  and  the  Tories 
won  the  general  election  by  a  large  majority. 

For  political  success  Cairns  had  several  qualities 
of  the  utmost  value  —  a  stately  presence,  a  clear 
head,  a  resolute  will,  and  splendid  oratorical  gifts. 
He  was  not  an  imaginative  speaker,  nor  fitted 
to  touch  the  emotions ;  but  he  had  a  match¬ 
less  power  of  statement,  and  a  no  less  matchless 
closeness  and  cogency  in  argument.  In  the 
famous  controversies  of  1866,  he  showed  himself 
the  clearest  and  most  vigorous  thinker  among 
the  opponents  of  reform,  more  solid,  if  less 
brilliant,  than  was  Robert  Lowe.  His  diction, 
without  being  exceptionally  choice,  was  pure  and 
precise,  and  his  manner  had  a  dignity  and  weight 
which  seemed  to  compel  your  attention  even 
when  the  matter  was  uninteresting.  A  voice 
naturally  neither  strong  nor  musical,  and  some¬ 
times  apt  to  sound  hollow  (for  the  chest  was  weak), 
was  managed  with  great  skill ;  action  and  gesture 
were  used  sparingly  but  effectively,  and  the  tall 
well-built  figure  and  strongly-marked,  somewhat 
Roman  features,  with  their  haughty  and  distant 
air,  deepened  the  impression  of  power,  courage, 
and  resolution  which  was  characteristic  of  the 
whole  man. 

The  qualities  of  oratory  I  have  described 


Lord  Chancellor  Cairns  189 

may  seem  better  fitted  to  a  comparatively  sober 
and  sedate  assembly  like  the  House  of  Lords 
than  to  a  changeful  and  excitable  assembly 
like  the  House  of  Commons.  Yet,  in  point  of 
fact,  Cairns  spoke  better  in  the  Commons  than  he 
did  afterwards  in  the  Lords,  and  would  have  left 
an  even  higher  oratorical  reputation  had  his 
career  in  the  popular  House  been  longer  and  his 
displays  more  numerous.  The  reason  seems  to  be 
that  the  heat  of  that  House  warmed  his  somewhat 
chilly  temperament,  and  roused  him  to  a  more 
energetic  and  ardent  style  of  speaking  than  was 
needed  in  the  Upper  Chamber,  where  he  and 
his  friends,  commanding  a  large  majority,  had 
things  all  their  own  way.  In  the  House  of 
Commons  he  confronted  a  crowd  of  zealous 
adversaries,  and  put  forth  all  the  forces  of  his 
logic  and  rhetoric  to  overcome  them.  In  the  more 
languid  House  of  Lords  he  was  apt  to  be  didactic, 
sometimes  even  prolix.  He  overproved  his  own 
case  without  feeling  the  need,  which  he  would  have 
felt  in  the  Commons,  of  overthrowing  the  case  of 
the  other  side  ;  his  manner  wanted  animation  and 
his  matter  variety.  Still,  he  was  a  great  speaker, 
greater  as  a  speaker  upon  legal  topics,  where  a 
power  of  exact  statement  and  lucid  exposition  is 
required,  than  any  one  he  left  behind  him. 

Why,  it  may  be  asked,  with  these  gifts,  and 
with  so  much  firmness  and  energy  of  character, 
did  he  not  play  an  even  more  conspicuous  part 


190  Biographical  Studies 

in  politics,  and  succeed,  after  Lord  Beaconsfield’s 
death,  to  the  chieftaincy  of  the  Tory  party? 
The  answer  is  to' be  found  partly  in  the  prejudice 
which  still  survives  in  England  against  legal 
politicians,  partly  in  certain  defects  of  his  own 
personality.  Although  sincerely  pious,  and  ex¬ 
emplary  in  all  the  relations  of  domestic  life,  he 
was  ungenial  and  unbending  in  social  intercourse. 
Few  equally  eminent  men  of  our  time  have  had  so 
narrow  a  circle  of  personal  friends.  There  was  a 
dryness,  a  coldness,  and  an  appearance  of  reserve 
and  hauteur  about  his  manner  which  repelled 
strangers,  and  kept  acquaintanceship  from  ripening 
into  friendship.  To  succeed  as  a  political  leader,  a 
man  must  usually  (I  do  not  say  invariably,  because 
therearea  few  remarkable  instances —  Mr.  Parnell’s 
would  appear  to  be  one  of  them  —  to  the  contrary) 
at  least  seem  sympathetic ;  must  be  able  to  enter 
into  the  feelings  of  his  followers,  and  show  him¬ 
self  interested  in  them  not  merely  as  party 
followers,  but  as  human  beings.  There  must  be 
a  certain  glow,  a  certain  effluence  of  feeling  about 
him,  which  makes  them  care  for  him  and  rally 
to  him  as  a  personality.  Whether  Lord  Cairns 
wanted  warmth  of  heart,  or  whether  it  was  that  an 
inner  warmth  failed  to  pierce  the  cloak  of  reserve 
and  pride  which  he  habitually  wore,  I  do  not 
attempt  to  determine.  But  the  defect  told  heavily 
against  him.  He  never  became  a  familiar  figure 
to  the  mass  of  his  party,  a  person  whose  features 


Lord  Chancellor  Cairns  191 

they  knew,  at  whose  name  they  would  cheer ; 
and  nowadays  all  leaders,  to  whatever  party  they 
belong,  find  a  source  of  strength  in  winning  this 
kind  of  popularity.  The  quality  which  Ameri¬ 
cans  call  magnetism  is  perhaps  less  essential 
in  England  than  in  the  country  which  distin¬ 
guished  and  named  it ;  but  it  is  helpful  even 
in  England.  Cairns,  though  an  Irishman,  was 
wholly  without  it. 

In  the  field  of  law,  where  passion  has  no 
place,  and  even  imagination  must  be  content 
to  move  with  clipped  wings  along  the  ground, 
the  merits  of  Lord  Cairns’s  intellect  showed 
to  the  best  advantage.  At  the  Chancery  bar  he 
was  one  of  a  trio  who  had  not  been  surpassed,  if 
ever  equalled,  during  the  nineteenth  century,  and 
whom  none  of  our  now  practising  advocates  rivals. 
The  other  two  were  Mr.,  afterwards  Lord  Justice, 
Rolt,  and  Mr.  Roundell  Palmer,  afterwards  Lord 
Chancellor  Selborne.  All  were  admirable  lawyers, 
but,  of  the  three,  Rolt  excelled  in  his  spirited  pre¬ 
sentation  of  a  case  and  in  the  lively  vigour  of  his 
arguments.  Palmer  was  conspicuous  for  exhaust¬ 
less  ingenuity,  and  for  a  subtlety  which  sometimes 
led  him  away  into  reasonings  too  fine  for  the 
court  to  follow.  Cairns  was  broad,  massive, 
convincing,  with  a  robust  urgency  of  logic  which 
seemed  to  grasp  and  fix  you,  so  that  while  he 
spoke  you  could  fancy  no  conclusion  possible  save 
that  toward  which  he  moved.  His  habit  was  to 


192  Biographical  Studies 

seize  upon  what  he  deemed  the  central  and  vital 
point  of  the  case,  throwing  the  whole  force  of 
his  argument  upon  that  one  point,  and  holding 
the  judge’s  mind  fast  to  it. 

All  these  famous  men  were  raised  to  the  judicial 
bench.  Rolt  remained  there  for  a  few  months 
only,  so  his  time  was  too  short  to  permit  him  to 
enrich  our  jurisprudence  and  leave  a  memory  of 
himself  in  the  Reports.  Palmer  sat  in  the  House 
of  Lords  from  his  accession  to  the  Chancellorship 
in  1872  till  his  death  in  1896,  and,  while  fully 
sustaining  his  reputation  as  a  man  of  eminent 
legal  capacity,  was,  on  the  whole,  less  brilliant  as  a 
judge  than  he  had  been  as  an  advocate,  because  a 
tendency  to  over-refinement  is  more  dangerous 
in  the  judicial  than  in  the  forensic  mind.  He 
made  an  admirable  Chancellor,  and  showed  him¬ 
self  more  industrious  and  more  zealous  for  law 
reform  than  did  Cairns.  But  Cairns  was  the 
greater  judge,  and  became  to  the  generation 
which  argued  before  him  a  model  of  judicial  ex¬ 
cellence.  In  hearing  a  cause  he  was  singularly 
patient,  rarely  interrupting  counsel,  and  then  only 
to  put  some  pertinent  question.  His  figure  was 
so  still,  his  countenance  so  impassive,  that  people 
sometimes  doubted  whether  he  was  really  attend¬ 
ing  to  all  that  was  urged  at  the  bar.  But  when 
the  time  came  for  him  to  deliver  judgment, 
which  in  the  House  of  Lords  is  done  in  the  form 
of  a  speech  addressed  to  the  House  in  moving 


Lord  Chancellor  Cairns  193 

or  supporting  a  motion  that  is  to  become  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  the  tribunal,  it  was  seen  how  fully  he  had 
apprehended  the  case  in  all  its  bearings.  His 
deliverances  were  never  lengthy,  but  they  were  ex¬ 
haustive.  They  went  straight  to  the  vital  principles 
on  which  the  question  turned,  stated  these  in  the 
most  luminous  way,  and  applied  them  with  un¬ 
erring  exactitude  to  the  particular  facts.  It  is 
as  a  storehouse  of  fundamental  doctrines  that  his 
judgments  are  so  valuable.  They  disclose  less 
knowledge  of  case-law  than  do  those  of  some  other 
judges;  but  Cairns  was  not  one  of  the  men  who 
love  cases  for  their  own  sake,  and  he  never  cared 
to  draw  upon,  still  less  to  display,  more  learning 
than  was  needed  for  the  matter  in  hand.  It 
was  in  the  grasp  of  the  principles  involved,  in 
the  breadth  of  view  which  enabled  him  to  see 
these  principles  in  their  relation  to  one  another,  in 
the  precision  of  the  logic  which  drew  conclusions 
from  the  principles,  in  the  perfectly  lucid  language 
in  which  the  principles  were  expounded  and 
applied,  that  his  strength  lay.  Herein  he  sur¬ 
passed  the  most  eminent  of  contemporary  judges, 
the  then  Master  of  the  Rolls,  for  while  Jessel  had 
perhaps  a  quicker  mind  than  Cairns,  he  had  not  so 
wide  a  mind,  nor  one  so  thoroughly  philosophical 
in  the  methods  by  which  it  moved. 

Outside  the  spheres  of  law  and  politics,  Cairns’s 
only  interest  was  in  religion.  He  did  not  seem, 
although  a  good  classical  scholar  and  a  competent 


194  Biographical  Studies 

mathematician,  to  care  either  for  letters  or  for 
science.  But  he  was  a  Sunday-school  teacher 
nearly  all  his  life.  Prayer-meetings  were  held 
at  his  house,  at  which  barristers,  not  otherwise 
known  for  their  piety,  but  believed  to  desire 
county  court  judgeships,  were  sometimes  seen. 
He  used  to  take  the  chair  at  missionary  and 
other  philanthropic  meetings.  He  was  sur¬ 
rounded  by  evangelisers  and  clergymen.  But 
nothing  softened  the  austerity  or  melted  the  ice 
of  his  manners.  Neither  did  the  great  position 
he  had  won  seem  to  give  a  higher  and  broader 
quality  to  his  statesmanship.  It  is  true  that  in 
law  he  was  wholly  free  from  the  partisanship 
which  tinged  his  politics.  No  one  was  more 
perfectly  fair  upon  the  Bench ;  no  one  more 
honestly  anxious  to  arrive  at  a  right  decision. 
And  as  a  law  reformer,  although  he  effected  less 
than  might  have  been  hoped  from  his  abilities  or 
expected  from  the  absolute  sway  which  he  exer¬ 
cised  while  Chancellor  in  Lord  Beaconsfield’s 
Government  from  1874  to  1880,  he  was  free  from 
prejudice,  and  willing  to  sweep  away  antiquated 
rules  or  usages  if  they  seemed  to  block  the 
channel  of  speedy  justice.  But  in  politics  this 
impartiality  and  elevation  vanished  even  after  he 
had  risen  so  high  that  he  did  not  need  to  humour 
the  passions  or  confirm  the  loyalty  of  his  own 
associates.  He  seemed  to  be  not  merely  a  party 
man,  which  an  English  politician  is  forced  to  be, 


Lord  Chancellor  Cairns  195 

because  if  he  stands  outside  party  he  cannot  effect 
anything,  but  a  partisan  —  that  is,  a  man  wholly 
devoted  to  his  party,  who  sees  everything  through 
its  eyes,  and  argues  every  question  in  its  interests. 
He  gave  the  impression  of  being  either  unwilling 
or  unable  to  rise  to  a  higher  and  more  truly 
national  view,  and  sometimes  condescended  to 
arguments  whose  unsoundness  his  penetrating 
intellect  could  hardly  have  failed  to  detect.  His 
professional  tone  had  been  blameless,  but  at  the 
bar  the  path  of  rectitude  is  plain  and  smooth,  and 
a  scrupulous  mind  finds  fewer  cases  of  conscience 
present  themselves  in  a  year  than  in  Parliament 
within  a  month.  Yet  if  in  this  respect  Cairns 
failed  to  reach  a  level  worthy  of  his  splendid 
intellect,  the  defect  was  due  not  to  any  selfish 
view  of  his  own  interest,  but  rather  to  the  narrow¬ 
ness  of  the  groove  into  which  his  mind  had  fallen, 
and  to  the  atmosphere  of  Orange  sentiment  in 
which  he  had  grown  up.  As  a  politician  he  is 
already  beginning  to  be  forgotten  ;  but  as  a  judge 
he  will  be  held  in  honourable  remembrance  as 
one  of  the  five  or  six  most  brilliant  luminaries 
that  have  adorned  the  English  Bench  since  those 
remote  days 1  in  which  the  beginning  of  legal 
memory  is  placed. 


1  The  reign  of  King  Richard  the  First. 


BISHOP  FRASER 


James  Fraser,  Bishop  of  Manchester  from  1870 
till  1885,  was  born  in  Gloucestershire,  of  a  Scottish 
family,  in  1818,  and  died  at  Manchester  in  1885.1 
He  took  no  prominent  part  in  ecclesiastical  politics, 
and  no  part  at  all  in  general  politics.  Though 
a  sound  classical  scholar  in  the  old-fashioned 
sense  of  the  term — he  won  the  Ireland  University 
Scholarship  at  Oxford,  then  and  still  the  most 
conspicuous  prize  in  the  field  of  classics  —  he  was 
not  an  exceptionally  cultivated  man,  and  he  never 
wrote  anything  except  official  reports  and  epis¬ 
copal  charges.  Neither  was  he,  although  a  ready 
and  effective  speaker,  gifted  with  the  highest 
kind  of  eloquence.  Neither  was  he  a  profound 
theologian.  Yet  his  character  and  career  are  of 
permanent  interest,  for  he  created  not  merely  a 
new  episcopal  type,  but  (one  may  almost  say) 
a  new  ecclesiastical  type  within  the  Church  of 
England. 

Till  some  sixty  or  seventy  years  ago  the 
normal  English  bishop  was  a  rich,  dignified,  and 

1  Two  Lives  of  Dr.  Fraser  have  been  published,  one  (in  1887)  by  the 
late  Judge  Hughes,  the  other,  which  gives  a  fuller  impression  of  his  per¬ 
sonal  character,  by  the  Rev.  J.  W.  Diggle  (1891). 

196 


1 97 


Bishop  Fraser 

rather  easy-going  magnate,  aristocratic  in  his 
tastes  and  habits,  moderate  in  his  theology,  some¬ 
times  to  the  verge  of  indifferentism,  quite  as  much 
a  man  of  the  world  as  a  pastor  of  souls.  He  had 
usually  obtained  his  preferment  by  his  family  con¬ 
nections,  or  by  some  service  rendered  to  the  court 
or  a  political  chief  —  perhaps  even  by  solicita¬ 
tion  or  intrigue.  Now  and  then  eminence  in  learn¬ 
ing  or  literature  raised  a  man  to  the  Bench :  there 
were,  for  instance,  the  “  Greek  play  ”  bishops, 
such  as  Dr.  Monk  of  Gloucester,  whose  fame 
rested  on  their  editions  of  the  Attic  dramatists ; 
and  the  Quarterly  Review  bishops,  such  as  Dr. 
Copleston,  of  Llandaff,  whose  powerful  pen,  as 
well  as  his  wise  administration  of  the  great 
Oxford  College  over  which  he  long  presided, 
amply  justified  his  promotion.  So  even  in  the 
eighteenth  century  the  illustrious  Butler  had 
been  Bishop  of  Durham,  as  in  Ireland  the 
illustrious  Berkeley  had  been  Bishop  of  Cloyne. 
But,  on  the  whole,  the  bishops  of  our  grand¬ 
fathers’  days  were  more  remarkable  for  their 
prudence  and  tact,  their  adroitness  or  supple¬ 
ness,  than  for  intellectual  or  moral  superiority  to 
the  rest  of  the  clergy.  Their  own  upper-class 
world,  and  the  middle  class  which,  in  the  main, 
took  its  view  of  English  institutions  from  the 
upper  class,  respected  them  as  a  part  of  the  solid 
fabric  of  English  society,  but  they  were  a  mark 
for  Radical  invective  and  for  literary  sneers. 


198  Biographical  Studies 

Their  luxurious  pomp  and  ease  were  incessantly 
contrasted  with  the  simplicity  of  the  apostles  and 
the  poverty  of  curates,  and  the  abundance  among 
them  of  the  gifts  that  befit  the  senate  or  the 
drawing-room  was  compared  with  the  rarity  of  the 
graces  that  adorn  a  saint.  The  comparison  was 
hardly  fair,  for  saints  are  scarce,  and  a  good  bishop 
needs  some  qualities  which  a  saint  may  lack. 

That  revival  within  the  Church  of  England 
which  went  on  in  various  forms  from  1800  till 
1870,  at  first  Low  Church  or  Evangelical  in  its 
tendencies,  latterly  more  conspicuously  High 
Church  and  Ritualist,  began  from  below  and 
worked  upwards  till  at  length  it  reached  the 
bishops.  Lord  Palmerston,  influenced  by  Lord 
Shaftesbury,  filled  the  vacant  sees  that  fell  to  him 
with  earnest  men,  sometimes  narrow,  sometimes 
deficient  in  learning,  but  often  good  preachers,  and 
zealous  for  the  doctrines  they  held.  When  the 
High  Churchmen  found  their  way  to  the  Bench, 
as  they  did  very  largely  under  Lord  Derby’s  and 
Mr.  Gladstone’s  rule,  they  showed  as  much  theo¬ 
logical  zeal  as  the  Evangelicals,  and  perhaps  more 
talent  for  administration.  The  popular  idea  of 
what  may  be  expected  from  a  bishop  rose,  and  the 
bishops  rose  with  the  idea.  As  Bishop  of  Oxford, 
Dr.  Samuel  Wilberforce  was  among  the  first  to 
make  himself  powerfully  felt  through  his  diocese. 
His  example  told  upon  other  prelates,  and  prime 
ministers  grew  more  anxious  to  select  energetic 


Bishop  Fraser  199 

and  popular  men.  So  it  came  to  pass  that  the 
bishops  began  to  be  among  the  foremost  men  in 
the  Church  of  England.  Some,  like  Dr.  Magee 
of  Peterborough,  and  afterwards  of  York,  were 
brilliant  orators;  some,  like  Dr.  Lightfoot  of 
Durham,  profound  scholars;  some,  like  Dr. 
Temple  of  Exeter,  able  and  earnest  adminis¬ 
trators.  There  remained  but  few  who  had  not 
some  good  claim  to  the  dignity  they  enjoyed. 
So  it  may  be  said,  when  one  compares  the  later 
Victorian  bishops  with  their  Georgian  predeces¬ 
sors,  that  no  class  in  the  country  has  improved 
more.  Few  now  sneer  at  them,  for  no  set  of  men 
take  a  more  active  and  more  creditable  part  in  the 
public  business  of  the  country.  Their  incomes, 
curtailed  of  late  years  in  the  case  of  the  richer 
sees,  are  no  more  than  sufficient  for  the  expenses 
which  fall  upon  them,  and  they  work  as  hard  as 
any  other  men  for  their  salaries.  Though  the 
larger  sees  have  been  divided,  the  reduction  of 
the  toil  of  bishops  thus  effected  has  been  less  than 
the  addition  to  it  due  to  the  growth  of  population 
and  the  increased  activity  of  the  clergy.  The 
only  defect  which  the  censorious  still  impute  to 
them  is  a  certain  episcopal  conventionality,  a  dis¬ 
position  to  try  to  please  everybody  by  the  use  of 
vague  professional  language,  a  tendency  to  think 
too  much  about  the  Church  as  a  church  establish¬ 
ment,  and  to  defer  to  clerical  opinion  when  they 
ought  to  speak  and  act  with  an  independence 


200 


Biographical  Studies 

born  of  their  individual  opinions.  Some  of  them, 
as,  for  instance,  the  three  I  have  just  mentioned, 
were  not  open  to  this  reproach.  It  was  one 
of  the  merits  and  charms  of  Fraser  that  he  was 
absolutely  free  from  any  such  tendency.  Other 
men,  such  as  Bishop  Lightfoot,  have  been  not 
less  eminent  models  of  the  virtues  which  ought 
to  characterise  a  great  Christian  pastor;  but 
Fraser  (appointed  some  time  before  Lightfoot) 
was  the  first  to  be  an  absolutely  unconventional 
and,  so  to  speak,  unepiscopal  bishop.  His  career 
marked  a  new  departure  and  set  a  new  example. 

Fraser  spent  the  earlier  years  of  his  manhood 
in  Oxford,  as  a  tutor  in  Oriel  College,  teaching 
Thucydides  and  Aristotle.  Like  many  of  his 
Oxford  contemporaries,  he  continued  through  life 
to  think  on  Aristotelian  lines,  and  one  could  trace 
them  in  his  sermons.  He  then  took  in  succession 
two  college  livings,  both  in  quiet  nooks  in  the 
south  of  England,  and  discharged  for  nearly 
twenty  years  the  simple  duties  of  a  parish  priest, 
unknown  to  the  great  world,  but  making  himself 
beloved  by  the  people,  and  doing  his  best  to 
improve  their  condition.  The  zeal  he  had  shown 
in  promoting  elementary  education  caused  him  to 
be  appointed  (in  1865)  by  the  Schools  Inquiry 
Commissioners  to  be  their  Assistant  Commis¬ 
sioner  to  examine  the  common-school  system  of 
the  United  States,  and  the  excellence  of  his  report 
thereon  attracted  the  notice  of  the  late  Lord 


20  1 


Bishop  Fraser 

Lyttelton,  one  of  those  Commissioners  who  were 
then  sitting  to  investigate  the  state  of  secondary 
education  in  England.  His  report  long  remained 
by  far  the  best  general  picture  of  American 
schools,  conspicuous  for  its  breadth  of  view,  its 
clearness  of  statement,  its  sympathetic  insight 
into  conditions  unlike  those  he  had  known  in 
England.  On  the  recommendation  (as  has  been 
generally  believed)  of  Lord  Lyttelton  and  of  the 
then  Bishop  of  Salisbury,  who  was  a  friend  of 
Dr.  Fraser’s,  Mr.  Gladstone,  at  that  time  Prime 
Minister,  appointed  him  Bishop  of  Manchester 
in  1870.  The  diocese  of  Manchester,  which 
included  all  Lancashire  except  Liverpool  and  a 
small  district  in  the  extreme  north  of  the  county, 
had  been  under  a  bishop  who,  although  an  able 
and  learned  man,  capable  of  making  himself 
agreeable  when  he  pleased,  was  personally  un¬ 
popular,  and  had  done  little  beyond  his  formal 
duties.  He  lived  in  a  large  and  handsome 
country-house  some  miles  from  the  city,  and  was 
known  by  sight  to  very  few  of  its  inhabitants. 
(I  was  familiar  with  Lancashire  in  those  days,  for 
I  had  visited  all  its  grammar-schools  as  Assistant 
Commissioner  to  the  Commission  just  referred 
to,  and  there  was  hardly  a  trace  to  be  found  in 
it  of  the  bishop’s  action.)  Fraser  had  not  been 
six  months  in  the  county  before  everything  was 
changed.  The  country  mansion  was  sold,  and  he 
procured  a  modest  house  in  one  of  the  less  fashion- 


202 


Biographical  Studies 

able  suburbs  of  the  city.  He  preached  twice 
every  Sunday,  usually  in  some  parish  church,  and 
spent  the  week  in  travelling  up  and  down  his 
diocese,  so  that  the  days  were  few  in  which  he 
was  not  on  the  railway.  He  stretched  out  the 
hand  of  friendship  to  the  Dissenters  (numerous 
and  powerful  in  the  manufacturing  districts),  who 
had  hitherto  regarded  a  bishop  as  a  sort  of  natural 
enemy,  gained  their  confidence,  and  soon  became 
as  popular  with  them  as  with  the  laity  of  his 
own  Church.  He  associated  himself  with  all 
the  works  of  benevolence  or  public  utility  which 
were  in  progress,  subscribed  to  all  so  far  as  his 
means  allowed,  and  was  always  ready  to  speak 
at  a  meeting  on  behalf  of  any  good  enterprise. 
He  dealt  in  his  sermons  with  the  topics  of  the 
day,  avoiding  party  politics,  but  speaking  his 
mind  on  all  social  and  moral  questions  with  a 
freedom  which  sometimes  involved  him  in  passing 
difficulties,  but  stimulated  the  minds  of  his  hearers, 
and  gave  the  impression  of  his  own  perfect 
candour  and  perfect  courage.  He  used  to  say 
that  as  he  felt  it  his  duty  to  speak  wherever  he 
was  asked  to  do  so,  he  must  needs  speak  without 
preparation,  and  must  therefore  expect  sometimes 
to  get  into  hot  water;  that  this  was  a  pity,  but 
it  was  not  his  fault  that  he  was  reported,  and 
that  it  was  better  to  run  the  risk  of  making 
mistakes  and  suffering  for  them  than  to  refuse 
out  of  self-regarding  caution  to  give  the  best  of 


203 


Bishop  Fraser 

himself  to  the  diocese.  He  had  that  true  modesty 
which  makes  a  man  willing  to  do  a  thing  imper¬ 
fectly,  at  the  risk  of  lowering  his  intellectual  repu¬ 
tation.  He  knew  that  he  was  neither  a  deep 
thinker  nor  a  finished  preacher,  and  was  content 
to  be  what  he  was,  so  long  as  he  could  perform 
the  work  which  it  was  in  him  to  do.  He  lost 
no  opportunity  of  meeting  the  working  men, 
would  go  and  talk  to  them  in  the  yards  of  the 
mills  or  at  the  evening  gatherings  of  mechanics’ 
institutes ;  and  when  any  misfortune  befell,  such 
as  a  colliery  accident,  he  was  often  among  the 
first  who  reached  the  spot  to  help  the  survivors 
and  comfort  the  widows.  He  made  no  difference 
between  rich  and  poor,  showed  no  wish  to  be  a 
guest  in  the  houses  of  the  great,  and  treated  the 
poorest  curate  with  as  much  courtesy  as  the  most 
pompous  county  magnate.  His  work  in  Lanca¬ 
shire  seldom  allowed  him  to  appear  in  the  House 
of  Lords ;  and  this  he  regretted,  not  that  he 
desired  to  speak  there,  but  because,  as  he  said, 
“  Whether  or  not  bishops  do  Parliament  good, 
Parliament  does  bishops  good.” 

Such  a  simple,  earnest,  active  course  of  conduct 
told  upon  the  feelings  of  the  people  who  read  of 
his  words  and  doings.  But  even  greater  was  the 
impression  made  by  his  personality  upon  those 
who  saw  him.  He  was  a  tall,  well-built  man,1 

1  He  was  a  good  judge  of  horses,  and  had  in  his  youth  been  fond  of 
hunting. 


204  Biographical  Studies 

erect  in  figure,  with  a  quick  eye,  a  firm  step,  a 
ruddy  face,  an  expression  of  singular  heartiness 
and  geniality.  He  seemed  always  cheerful,  and, 
in  spite  of  his  endless  labours,  always  fresh  and 
strong.  His  smile  and  the  grasp  of  his  hand 
put  you  into  good-humour  with  yourself  and  the 
world ;  if  you  were  dispirited,  they  led  you  out 
of  shadow  into  sunlight.  He  was  not  a  great 
reader,  and  had  no  time  for  sustained  and  search¬ 
ing  thought;  yet  he  seemed  always  abreast  of 
what  was  passing  in  the  world,  and  to  know  what 
the  books  and  articles  and  speeches  of  the  day 
contained,  although  he  could  not  have  found  time 
to  peruse  them.  With  strong  opinions  of  his  own, 
he  was  anxious  to  hear  yours;  a  ready  and  eager 
talker,  yet  a  willing  listener.  His  oratory  was 
plain,  with  few  flights  of  rhetoric,  but  it  was  direct 
and  vigorous,  free  from  conventional  phrases, 
charged  with  clear  good  sense  and  genuine  feel¬ 
ing,  and  capable,  when  his  feeling  was  exception¬ 
ally  strong,  of  rising  to  eloquence.  He  had  a 
ready  sense  of  humour,  the  best  proof  of  which 
was  that  he  relished  a  joke  against  himself.1 

1  A  clergyman  of  his  diocese  had  once,  under  the  greatest  provoca¬ 
tion,  knocked  down  a  person  who  had  insulted  him,  and  the  bishop  wrote 
him  a  letter  of  reproof  pointing  out  (among  other  things)  that,  exposed  as 
the  Church  of  England  was  to  much  criticism  on  all  hands,  her  ministers 
ought  to  be  very  careful  in  their  demeanour.  The  offender  replied  by 
saying,  “  I  must  regretfully  admit  that  being  grossly  insulted,  and  forget¬ 
ting  in  the  heat  of  the  moment  the  critical  position  of  the  Church  of 
England,  I  did  knock  the  man  down,  etc.”  Fraser,  delighted  with  this 
turning  of  the  tables  on  himself,  told  me  the  anecdote  with  great  glee, 
and  invited  the  clergyman  to  stay  with  him  not  long  afterwards. 


Bishop  Fraser  205 

However,  the  greatest  charm,  both  of  his  public 
and  private  talk,  was  the  transparent  sincerity 
and  honesty  that  shone  through  it.  His  mind 
was  like  a  crystal  pool  of  water  in  a  mountain 
stream.  You  saw  everything  that  was  in  it,  and 
saw  nothing  that  was  mean  or  unworthy.  This 
sincerity  and  freshness  made  his  character  not 
only  manly,  but  lovable  and  beautiful,  beautiful 
in  its  tenderness,  its  loyalty  to  his  friends,  its 
devotion  to  truth. 

His  conscientious  anxiety  to  say  nothing  more 
than  he  thought  was  apt  to  make  him  an  em¬ 
barrassing  ally.  It  happened  more  than  once 
that  when  he  came  to  speak  at  a  public  meeting 
on  behalf  of  some  enterprise,  he  was  not  content, 
like  most  men,  to  set  forth  its  merits  and  claims, 
but  went  on  to  dwell  upon  possible  drawbacks 
or  dangers,  so  that  the  more  ardent  friends  of 
the  scheme  thought  he  was  pouring  cold  water 
on  them,  and  called  him  a  Balaam  reversed.  In 
a  political  assembly  he  would  have  been  an  enfant 
terrible  whom  his  party  would  have  feared  to  put 
up  to  speak ;  but  as  people  in  the  diocese  got  to 
know  that  this  was  his  way,  they  only  smiled  at 
his  too  ingenuous  honesty.  As  he  spoke  with  no 
preparation,  and  was  naturally  impulsive,  he  now 
and  then  spoke  unadvisedly,  and  received  a  good 
deal  of  newspaper  censure.  But  he  was  never 
involved  in  real  trouble  by  these  speeches.  As 
Dean  Stanley  wrote  to  him,  “  You  have  a  singular 


206  Biographical  Studies 

gift  of  going  to  the  very  verge  of  imprudence  and 
yet  never  crossing  it.” 

No  one  will  wonder  that  such  a  character,  set 
in  a  conspicuous  place,  and  joined  to  extraordinary 
activity  and  zeal,  should  have  produced  an  im¬ 
mense  effect  on  the  people  of  his  city  and  diocese. 
Since  Nonconformity  arose  in  England  in  the 
seventeenth  century,  no  bishop,  perhaps,  indeed 
no  man,  whether  cleric  or  layman,  had  done  so 
much  to  draw  together  people  of  different  religious 
persuasions  and  help  them  to  realise  their  common 
Christianity.  Densely  populated  South  Lanca¬ 
shire  is  practically  one  huge  town,  and  he  was  its 
foremost  citizen ;  the  most  instant  in  all  good 
works ;  the  one  whose  words  were  most  sure  to 
find  attentive  listeners.  This  was  because  he 
spoke,  I  will  not  say  as  a  layman,  but  simply 
as  a  Christian,  never  claiming  for  himself  any 
special  authority  in  respect  either  of  his  sacer¬ 
dotal  character  or  his  official  position.  No  English 
prelate  before  him  had  been  so  welcome  to  all 
classes  and  sections ;  none  was  so  much  lamented 
by  the  masses  of  the  people.  But  it  is  a  sig¬ 
nificant  fact  that  he  was  from  first  to  last  more 
popular  with  the  laity  than  with  the  clergy.  Not 
that  there  was  ever  any  slur  on  his  orthodoxy. 
He  began  life  as  a  moderate  High  Churchman, 
and  gradually  verged,  half  unconsciously,  toward 
what  would  be  called  a  Broad-Church  position ; 
maintaining  the  claim  of  the  Anglican  Church  to 


Bishop  Fraser  207 

undertake,  and  her  duty  to  hold  herself  responsible 
for,  the  education  of  the  people,  and  upholding 
her  status  as  an  establishment,  but  dwelling  little 
on  minor  points  of  doctrinal  difference,  and  seem¬ 
ing  to  care  still  less  for  external  observances  or 
points  of  ritual.  This  displeased  the  Anglo- 
Catholic  party,  and  even  among  other  sections  of 
the  clergy  there  was  a  kind  of  feeling  that  the 
Bishop  was  not  sufficiently  clerical,  did  not  set  full 
store  by  the  sacerdotal  side  of  his  office,  and  did 
not  think  enough  about  ecclesiastical  questions. 

He  was,  I  think,  the  first  bishop  who  greeted 
men  of  science  as  fellow-workers  for  truth,  and 
declared  that  Christianity  had  not,  and  could  not 
have,  anything  to  fear  from  scientific  inquiry. 
This  has  often  been  said  since,  but  in  1870  it  was 
so  novel  that  it  drew  from  Huxley  a  singularly 
warm  and  impressive  recognition.  He  was  one 
of  the  first  bishops  to  condemn  the  system  of 
theological  tests  in  the  English  universities.  He 
even  declared  that  “  it  was  an  evil  hour  when 
the  Church  thought  herself  obliged  to  add  to  or 
develop  the  simple  articles  of  the  Apostles’  Creed.” 
These  deliverances,  which  any  one  can  praise 
now,  alarmed  a  large  section  of  the  Church  of 
England  then ;  nor  was  the  bishop’s  friendliness 
to  Dissenters  favourably  regarded  by  those  who 
deny  to  Dissenting  pastors  the  title  of  Christian 
ministers.1 


1  He  was  himself  aware  that  this  caused  displeasure.  In  his  latest 


20 8  Biographical  Studies 

The  gravest  trouble  of  his  life  arose  in  connec¬ 
tion  with  legal  proceedings  which  he  felt  bound 
to  take  in  the  case  of  a  Ritualist  clergyman 
who  had  persisted  in  practices  apparently  illegal. 
Fraser,  though  personally  the  most  tolerant  of 
men  to  those  who  differed  from  his  own  theologi¬ 
cal  views,  felt  bound  to  enforce  the  law,  because 
it  was  the  law,  and  was  at  once  assailed  unjustly, 
as  well  as  bitterly,  by  those  who  sympathised  with 
the  offending  clergyman,  and  who  could  not,  or 
would  not,  understand  that  a  bishop,  like  other 
persons  in  an  official  position,  may  hold  it  his 
absolute  duty  to  carry  out  the  directions  of  the 
law  whether  or  no  he  approves  the  law,  and  at 
whatever  cost  to  himself.  These  attacks  were 
borne  with  patience  and  dignity.  He  was  never 
betrayed  into  recriminations,  and  could  the  more 
easily  preserve  his  calmness,  because  he  felt  no 
animosity. 

A  bishop  may  be  a  power  outside  his  own 
religious  community  even  in  a  country  where 

Charge,  delivered  some  months  before  his  death,  he  said :  “  I  am 

charged,  amongst  other  grievous  sins,  with  that  of  thinking  not  unkindly, 
and  speaking  not  unfavourably,  of  Dissenters.  I  don’t  profess  to  love 
dissent,  but  I  have  received  innumerable  kindnesses  from  Dissenters. 
Why  should  I  abuse  them?  Why  should  I  call  them  hard  names? 
Remembering  how  Nonconformity  was  made  —  no  doubt  sometimes  by 
self-will  and  pride  and  prejudice  and  ignorance,  but  far  more  often  by  the 
Church’s  supineness,  neglect,  and  intolerance  in  days  long  since  gone  by, 
of  which  we  have  not  yet  paid  the  full  penalty  —  though,  as  I  have  said, 
I  love  not  the  thing,  I  cannot  speak  harshly  of  it.” 

That  a  defence  was  needed  may  seem  strange  to  those  who  do  not 
know  England. 


209 


Bishop  Fraser 

the  clergy  are  separated  as  a  caste  from  the  lay 
people.  Such  men  as  Dupanloup  in  France  show 
that.  So  too  he  may  be  a  mighty  moral  and 
religious  force  outside  his  own  religious  com¬ 
munity  in  a  country  where  there  is  no  church 
established  or  endowed  by  the  State.  The 
example  of  Dr.  Phillips  Brooks  in  the  United 
States  shows  that.  But  Dupanloup  would  have 
been  eminent  and  influential  had  he  not  been  a 
clergyman  at  all ;  and  Dr.  Brooks  was  the  most 
inspiring  preacher  and  the  most  potent  leader  of 
religious  thought  in  America  long  before,  in 
the  last  years  of  his  life,  he  reluctantly  consented 
to  accept  the  episcopal  office.  Fraser,  not  so 
gifted  by  nature  as  either  of  those  men,  would 
have  had  little  chance  of  doing  the  work  he  did 
save  in  a  country  where  the  existence  of  an 
ancient  establishment  secures  for  one  of  its  digni¬ 
taries  a  position  of  far-reaching  influence.  When 
the  gains  and  losses  to  a  nation  of  the  retention 
of  a  church  establishment  are  reckoned  up,  this 
may  be  set  down  among  the  gains. 

If  the  Church  of  England  possessed  more 
leaders  like  Tait,  Fraser,  and  Lightfoot  —  the 
statesman,  the  citizen,  and  the  scholar  —  in  the 
characters  and  careers  of  all  of  whom  one  finds 
the  common  mark  of  a  catholic  and  pacific  spirit, 
she  would  have  no  need  to  fear  any  assaults  of 
political  foes,  no  temptation  to  ally  herself  with 
any  party,  but  might  stand  as  an  establishment 


2  10 


Biographical  Studies 

until,  after  long  years,  by  the  general  wish  of  her 
own  people,  as  well  as  of  those  who  are  without, 
she  passed  peaceably  into  the  position  of  being 
the  first  in  honour,  numbers,  and  influence  among 
a  group  of  Christian  communities,  all  equally  free 
from  State  control. 

Fraser’s  example  showed  how  much  an  attitude 
of  unpretending  simplicity  and  friendliness  to  all 
sects  and  classes  may  do  to  mitigate  the  jealousy 
and  suspicion  which  still  embitter  the  relations  of 
the  different  religious  bodies  in  England,  and 
which  work  for  evil  even  in  its  politics.  He 
created,  as  Dean  Stanley  said,  a  new  type  of  epis¬ 
copal  excellence :  and  why  should  not  original¬ 
ity  be  shown  in  the  conception  and  discharge  of 
an  office  as  well  as  in  the  sphere  of  pure  thought 
or  of  literary  creation  ? 


SIR  STAFFORD  HENRY  NORTHCOTE, 
EARL  OF  IDDESLEIGH 1 


Sir  Stafford  Northcote  (born  1818,  died  1887) 
belonged  to  a  type  of  politician  less  common 
among  us  than  it  used  to  be,  and  likely  to 
become  still  more  rare  as  England  grows  more 
democratic  —  the  county  gentleman  of  old  family 
and  good  estate,  who  receives  and  profits  by  a 
classical  education  at  one  of  the  ancient  uni¬ 
versities,  who  is  at  an  early  age  returned  to 
Parliament  in  respect  of  his  social  position  in 
his  county,  who  has  leisure  to  cultivate  him¬ 
self  for  statesmanship,  who  has  tastes  and 
resources  outside  the  sphere  of  politics.  Devon¬ 
shire,  whence  he  came,  has  preserved  more 
of  the  old  features  of  English  country  life 
than  the  central  and  northern  parts  of  England, 
where  manufactures  and  the  growth  of  popula¬ 
tion  have  swept  away  the  venerable  remains  of 
feudalism.  In  Devonshire  the  old  families  are 
still  deeply  respected  by  the  people.  They  are 
so  intermarried  that  most  of  them  have  ties  of 

1  A  Life  of  Lord  Lddesleigh,  written  by  Mr.  Andrew  Lang,  presents 
Northcote’s  character  and  career  with  fairness  and  discrimination. 


21 1 


2  12 


Biographical  Studies 

kinship  with  all  their  neighbours.  Few  rich 
parvenus  have  intruded  among  them ;  society  is 
therefore  exceptionally  easy,  simple,  and  unosten¬ 
tatious.  There  is  still  a  strong  local  patriotism, 
which  makes  every  Devonshire  man,  whatever 
his  political  prepossessions,  proud  of  other  Devon¬ 
shire  men  who  rise  to  eminence,  and  which 
exerts  a  wholesome  influence  on  the  tone  of 
manners  and  social  intercourse.  Northcote  was  a 
thorough  Devonshire  man,  who  loved  his  county 
and  knew  its  dialect :  his  Devonshire  stories, 
told  with  the  strong  accent  he  could  assume, 
were  the  delight  of  any  company  that  could 
tempt  him  to  repeat  them.  He  was  immensely 
popular  in  the  county,  and  had  well  earned  his 
popularity  by  his  pleasant  neighbourly  ways,  as 
well  as  by  his  attention  to  county  business  and 
to  the  duties  of  a  landowner. 

He  had  the  time-honoured  training  of  the 
good  old  English  type,  was  a  schoolboy  at 
Eton,  went  thence  to  Oxford,  won  the  highest 
distinctions  as  a  scholar,  and  laid  the  founda¬ 
tions  of  a  remarkably  wide  knowledge  of  modern 
as  well  as  ancient  literature.  He  served  his 
apprenticeship  to  statesmanship  as  private  secre¬ 
tary  to  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  was  then  (1843) 
a  member  of  Sir  Robert  Peel’s  Government. 
When  the  great  schism  in  the  Tory  party  took 
place  over  the  question  of  free  trade  in  corn,  he 
was  not  yet  in  Parliament,  and  therefore  was 


Sir  Stafford  Northcote  213 

not  driven  to  choose  between  Peel  and  the 
Protectionists.  In  1855,  when  he  first  entered 
the  House  of  Commons,  that  question  was  settled 
and  gone,  so  there  was  no  inconsistency  in  his 
entering  the  Tory  ranks,  although  himself  a  de¬ 
cided  Free  Trader.  He  was  not  a  man  who 
would  have  elbowed  his  way  upward.  But  elbows 
were  not  needed.  His  abilities,  as  well  as  his  in¬ 
dustry  and  the  confidence  he  inspired,  speedily 
brought  him  to  the  top.  He  was  appointed 
Secretary  to  the  Treasury  in  1859,  entered  the 
Cabinet  in  1866,  when  a  new  Tory  Ministry 
was  formed  under  Lord  Derby;  and  when  in 
1876  Mr.  Disraeli  retired  to  the  House  of  Lords, 
he  became,  being  then  Chancellor  of  the  Ex¬ 
chequer,  leader  of  the  majority  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  while  Mr.  Gathorne  Hardy,  the 
only  other  person  who  had  been  thought  of 
as  suitable  for  that  post,  received  a  peerage. 
Mr.  Hardy  was  a  more  forcible  and  rousing 
speaker,  but  Northcote  had  more  varied  accom¬ 
plishments  and  a  fuller  mastery  of  official  work. 
Disraeli  said  that  he  had  “  the  largest  parliamen¬ 
tary  knowledge  of  any  man  he  had  met.” 

As  an  administrator,  Sir  Stafford  Northcote 
was  diligent,  judicious,  and  free  from  any  taint 
of  jobbery.  He  sought  nothing  for  himself ; 
did  not  abuse  his  patronage ;  kept  the  public 
interests  steadily  before  his  mind.  He  was  con¬ 
siderate  to  his  subordinates,  and  gracious  to  all 


214  Biographical  Studies 

men.  He  never  grudged  labour,  although  there 
might  be  no  prospect  of  winning  credit  by  it. 
Scrupulous  in  discharging  his  duties  to  his 
party,  he  overtaxed  his  strength  by  speaking 
constantly  at  public  meetings  in  the  country,  a 
kind  of  work  he  must  have  disliked,  and  for 
which  he  was  ill  fitted  by  the  moderation  of  his 
views  and  of  his  language.  Parliament  is  not  a 
good  place  for  the  pursuit  of  pure  truth,  but  the 
platform  is  still  less  favourable  to  that  quest.  It 
was  remarked  of  him  that  even  in  party  gather¬ 
ings,  where  invective  against  political  opponents 
is  apt  to  be  expected  and  relished,  he  argued 
fairly,  and  never  condescended  to  abuse. 

As  a  Parliamentarian  he  had  two  eminent 
merits  —  immense  knowledge  and  admirable 
readiness.  He  had  been  all  his  life  a  keen 
observer  and  a  diligent  student;  and  as  his 
memory  was  retentive,  all  that  he  had  ob¬ 
served  or  read  stood  at  his  command.  In 
questions  of  trade  and  finance,  questions  which, 
owing,  perhaps,  to  their  increasing  intricacy, 
seem  to  be  less  and  less  frequently  mastered 
by  practical  politicians  in  England,  he  was 
especially  strong.  No  other  man  on  his  own 
side  in  politics  spoke  on  such  matters  with  equal 
authority,  and  the  brunt  of  the  battle  fell  on 
him  whenever  they  came  up  for  discussion. 
As  he  had  now  his  old  master  for  his  chief 
antagonist,  the  conflict  was  no  easy  one ;  but  he 


Sir  Stafford  Northcote  215 

never  shrank  from  it.  Not  less  remarkable  was 
his  alertness  in  debate.  His  manner  was  indeed 
somewhat  ineffective,  for  it  wanted  both  force  and 
variety.  Sentence  followed  sentence  in  a  smooth 
and  easy  stream,  always  clear,  always  grammati¬ 
cally  correct,  but  with  a  flow  too  equably  un¬ 
broken.  There  were  few  impressive  phrases, 
few  brilliant  figures,  few  of  those  appeals  to 
passion  with  which  it  is  necessary  to  warm  and 
rouse  a  large  assembly.  When  the  House  grew 
excited  at  the  close  of  a  long  full-dress  debate, 
and  Sir  Stafford  rose  in  the  small  hours  of  the 
morning  to  wind  it  up  on  behalf  of  his  party,  men 
felt  that  the  ripple  of  his  sweet  voice,  the  softness 
of  his  gentle  manner,  were  not  what  the  occasion 
called  for.  But  what  he  said  was  always  to  the 
point  and  well  worth  hearing.  No  facts  or 
arguments  suddenly  thrown  at  him  by  oppo¬ 
nents  disconcerted  him ;  for  there  was  sure  to 
be  an  answer  ready.  However  weak  his  own 
case  might  seem,  his  ingenuity  could  be  relied 
upon  to  strengthen  it;  however  powerfully  the 
hostile  case  had  been  presented,  he  found  weak 
places  in  it  and  shook  it  down  by  a  succession 
of  well-planted  criticisms,  each  apparently  small, 
but  damaging  when  taken  all  together,  because 
no  one  of  them  could  be  dismissed  as  irrelevant. 

It  was  interesting  to  watch  him  as  he  sat  on 
the  front  bench,  with  his  hat  set  so  low  on  his  brow 
that  it  hid  all  the  upper  part  of  his  face,  while  the 


216  Biographical  Studies 

lower  part  was  covered  by  a  thick  yellowish-brown 
beard,  perfectly  motionless,  rarely  taking  a  note 
of  what  was  said,  and,  to  all  appearance,  the  most 
indifferent  figure  in  the  House.  The  only  sign 
of  feeling  which  he  gave  was  to  be  found  in 
his  habit  of  thrusting  each  of  his  hands  up  the 
opposite  sleeve  of  his  coat  when  Mr.  Gladstone, 
the  only  assailant  whom  he  needed  to  fear,  burst 
upon  him  in  a  hailstorm  of  declamation.  But 
when  he  rose,  one  perceived  that  nothing  had 
escaped  him.  Every  point  which  an  antagonist 
had  made  was  taken  up  and  dealt  with ;  no  point 
that  could  aid  his  own  contention  was  neglected ; 
and  the  fluent  grace  with  which  his  discourse 
swept  along,  seldom  aided  by  a  reference  to 
notes,  was  not  more  surprising  than  the  unfailing 
skill  with  which  he  shunned  dangerous  ground, 
and  put  his  propositions  in  a  form  which  made 
it  difficult  to  contradict  them.  I  remember  to 
have  heard  a  member  of  the  opposite  party 
remark,  that  nothing  was  more  difficult  than 
to  defend  your  argument  from  Northcote,  because 
he  had  the  art  of  nibbling  it  away,  admitting 
a  little  in  order  to  evade  or  overthrow  the  rest. 

So  much  for  his  parliamentary  aptitudes,  which 
were  fully  recognised  before  he  rose  to  leadership. 
But  as  it  was  his  leadership  that  has  given  him  a 
place  in  history,  I  may  dwell  for  a  little  upon  the 
way  in  which  he  filled  that  most  trying  as  well 
as  most  honourable  post.  He  led  the  House  — 


Sir  Stafford  Northcote  217 

that  is  to  say,  the  Ministerial  majority  —  for  four 
sessions  (1877-1880),  and  the  Tory  Opposition  for 
five  and  a  half  sessions  (1880  to  middle  of  1885). 
To  lead  the  House  of  Commons  a  man  must  have, 
over  and  above  the  qualities  which  make  a  good 
debater,  an  unusual  combination  of  talents.  He 
must  be  both  bold  and  cautious,  combative  and 
cool.  He  must  take  on  his  own  responsibility, 
and  on  the  spur  of  the  moment,  decisions  which 
commit  the  whole  Ministry,  and  yet,  especially  if 
he  be  not  Prime  Minister,  he  must  consider  how 
far  his  colleagues  will  approve  and  implement  his 
action.  He  must  put  enough  force  and  fire 
into  his  speeches  to  rouse  his  own  ranks  and 
intimidate  (if  he  can)  his  opponents,  yet  must 
have  regard  to  the  more  timorous  spirits  among 
his  own  supporters,  going  no  further  than  he 
feels  they  will  follow,  and  must  sometimes  throw 
a  crafty  fly  over  those  in  the  Opposition  whom 
he  thinks  wavering  or  disaffected.  Under  the 
fire  of  debate,  perhaps  while  composing  the 
speech  he  has  to  make  in  reply,  he  must 
consider  not  merely  the  audience  before  him 
but  also  the  effect  his  words  will  have  when 
they  are  read  next  morning  in  cold  blood, 
and,  it  may  be,  the  effect  not  only  in  England 
but  abroad.  Being  responsible  for  the  whole 
conduct  of  parliamentary  business,  he  must  keep 
a  close  watch  upon  every  pending  bill,  and  de¬ 
termine  how  much  of  Government  time  shall  be 


2  i  8  Biographical  Studies 

allotted  to  each,  and  in  what  order  they  shall  be 
taken,  and  how  far  the  general  feeling  of  the 
House  will  let  him  go  in  seizing  the  hours  usually 
reserved  for  private  members,  and  in  granting  or 
refusing  opportunities  for  discussing  topics  he 
would  prefer  to  have  not  discussed  at  all. 

So  far  as  prudence,  tact,  and  knowledge  of 
business  could  enable  him  to  discharge  these 
duties,  Northcote  discharged  them  admirably. 
It  was  his  good  fortune  to  have  behind  him  in 
Lord  Beaconsfield,  who  had  recently  gone  to  the 
House  of  Lords,  a  chief  of  the  whole  party  who 
trusted  him,  and  with  whom  he  was  on  the  best 
terms.  The  immense  authority  of  that  chief 
secured  his  own  authority.  His  party  was  —  as 
the  Tory  party  usually  is  —  compact  and  loyal; 
and  his  majority  ample,  so  he  had  no  reason 
to  fear  defeat.  In  the  conflicts  that  arose 
over  Eastern  affairs  in  1877-79,  affairs  at  some 
moments  highly  critical,  he  was  cautious  and 
adroit,  more  cautious  than  Lord  Beaconsfield, 
sometimes  repairing  by  moderate  language  the 
harm  which  the  latter’s  theatrical  utterances 
had  done.  When  a  group  of  Irish  Nationalist 
members,  among  whom  Mr.  Parnell  soon  came 
to  the  front,  began  to  evade  the  rules  and 
paralyse  the  action  of  the  House  by  obstruc¬ 
tive  tactics,  he  was  less  successful.  Their 
ingenuity  baffled  the  Ministry,  and  brought  the 
House  into  sore  straits.  But  it  may  be  doubted 


Sir  Stafford  Northcote  219 

whether  any  leader  could  have  overcome  the 
difficulties  of  the  position.  It  was  a  new  posi¬ 
tion.  The  old  rules  framed  under  quite  different 
conditions  were  not  fit  to  check  members  who, 
far  from  regarding  the  sentiments  of  the  House, 
avowed  their  purpose  to  reduce  it  to  impotence, 
and  thereby  obtain  that  Parliament  of  their  own, 
which  could  alone,  as  they  held,  cure  the  ills  of 
Ireland. 

After  ten  years  of  struggle  and  experiment, 
drastic  remedies  for  obstruction  were  at  last 
devised;  but  in  the  then  state  of  opinion  within 
the  House,  those  remedies  could  not  have  been 
carried.  Members  accustomed  to  the  old  state  of 
things  could  not  for  a  good  while  make  up  their 
minds  to  sacrifice  part  of  their  own  privileges  in 
order  to  deal  with  a  difficulty  the  source  of  which 
they  would  not  attempt  to  cure.  On  the  whole, 
therefore,  though  he  was  blamed  at  the  time, 
Northcote  may  be  deemed  to  have  passed  credit¬ 
ably  through  his  first  period  of  leadership. 

It  was  when  he  had  to  lead  his  party  in 
Opposition,  after  April  1880,  that  his  severest 
trial  came.  To  lead  the  minority  is  usually  easier 
than  to  lead  the  majority.  A  leader  of  the 
Opposition  also  must,  no  doubt,  take  swift  deci¬ 
sions  in  the  midst  of  a  debate,  must  consider 
how  far  he  is  pledging  his  party  to  a  policy 
which  they  may  be  required  to  maintain  when 
next  they  come  into  power,  must  endeavour  to 


220 


Biographical  Studies 

judge,  often  on  scanty  data,  how  many  of  his  usual 
or  nominal  supporters  will  follow  him  into  the 
lobby  when  a  division  is  called,  and  how  best  he 
can  draw  off  some  votes  from  among  his  oppo¬ 
nents.  Still,  delicate  as  this  work  is,  it  is  not  so 
hard  as  that  of  the  leader  of  the  Government,  for 
it  is  rather  critical  than  constructive,  and  a  mis¬ 
take  can  seldom  do  irreparable  mischief.  North- 
cote,  however,  had  special  difficulties  to  face. 
Mr.  Gladstone,  still  full  of  energy  and  fire,  was 
leading  the  majority.  After  a  few  months  Lord 
Beaconsfield’s  mantle  no  longer  covered  North- 
cote  (that  redoubtable  strategist  died  in  April 
1 88 1),  and  a  small  but  active  group  of  Tory 
members  set  up  an  irregular  skirmishing  Oppo¬ 
sition  on  their  own  account,  paying  little  heed 
to  his  moderate  counsels.  The  Tory  party 
was  then  furious  at  its  unexpected  defeat  at 
the  election  of  1880.  It  was  full  of  fight,  burn¬ 
ing  for  revenge,  eager  to  denounce  every  trifling 
error  of  the  Ministry,  and  to  give  battle  on  small 
as  well  as  great  occasions.  Hence  it  resented 
the  calm  and  cautiously  critical  attitude  which 
Northcote  took  up.  He  had  plenty  of  courage ; 
but  he  thought,  as  indeed  most  impartial  ob¬ 
servers  thought,  that  little  was  to  be  gained 
by  incessantly  worrying  an  enemy  so  superior 
in  force  and  flushed  with  victory;  that  prema¬ 
ture  assaults  might  consolidate  a  majority  within 
which  there  existed  elements  of  discord ;  and 


Sir  Stafford  Northcote  221 


that  it  was  wiser  to  wait  till  the  Ministry  should 
begin  to  make  mistakes  and  incur  misfortunes  in 
the  natural  course  of  events,  before  resuming  the 
offensive  against  them.  There  is  a  natural  ten¬ 
dency  to  reaction  in  English  popular  opinion,  and 
a  tendency  to  murmur  against  whichever  party 
may  be  in  power.  This  tendency  must  soon 
have  told  in  favour  of  the  Tories,  with  little 
effort  on  their  own  part ;  and  when  it  was  already 
manifest,  a  Parliamentary  attack  could  have  been 
delivered  with  effect.  Northcote’s  view  and  plan 
were  probably  right,  but,  being  too  prone  to  yield 
to  pressure,  and  finding  his  hand  forced,  he 
allowed  himself  to  be  drawn  by  the  clamour  of 
his  followers  into  aggressive  operations,  which, 
nevertheless,  himself  not  quite  approving  them, 
he  conducted  in  a  half-hearted  way.  He  had 
not  Mr.  Gladstone’s  power  of  doing  excellently 
what  he  hated  to  have  to  do.  And  it  must  be 
admitted  that  from  1882  onwards,  when  troubles 
in  Ireland  and  oscillations  in  Egyptian  policy 
had  begun  to  shake  the  credit  of  the  Liberal 
Ministry,  he  showed  less  fire  and  pugnacity  than 
the  needs  of  the  time  required  from  a  party 
leader.  In  one  thing  the  young  men,  who, 
like  Zulu  warriors,  wished  to  wash  their  spears, 
were  right  and  he  was  wrong.  He  conceived 
that  frequent  attacks  and  a  resort  to  obstructive 
tactics  would  damage  the  Opposition  in  the  eyes 
of  the  country.  Experience  has  shown  that 


22  2 


Biographical  Studies 

parties  do  not  greatly  suffer  from  the  way  they 
fight  their  Parliamentary  battles.  Few  people 
follow  the  proceedings  closely  enough  to  know 
when  an  Opposition  deserves  blame  for  prolong¬ 
ing  debate,  or  a  Ministry  for  abuse  of  the  closure. 
So,  too,  in  the  United  States  it  would  seem  that 
neither  the  tyrannical  action  of  a  majority  nor 
filibustering  by  a  minority  shocks  the  nation. 

Not  only  was  Northcote’s  own  temper  pacific, 
but  he  was  too  sweetly  reasonable  and  too  dis¬ 
passionate  to  be  a  successful  leader  in  Oppo¬ 
sition.  He  felt  that  he  was  never  quite  a 
party  man.  His  mind  was  almost  too  judicial, 
his  courtesy  too  unfailing,  his  temper  too  un¬ 
ruffled,  his  manner  too  unassuming.  He  did  not 
inspire  awe  or  fear.  Not  only  did  he  never 
seek  to  give  pain,  even  where  pain  might  have 
been  a  wholesome  discipline  for  pushing  selfish¬ 
ness —  he  seemed  incapable  of  irritation,  and  bore 
with  vexatious  obstruction  from  some  members 
of  the  House,  and  mutinous  attacks  from  others 
who  belonged  to  his  own  party,  when  a  spirit 
less  kindly  and  forgiving  might  have  better 
secured  his  own  authority  and  the  dignity  of 
the  assembly.  He  proceeded  on  the  assumption, 
an  unsafe  one,  as  he  had  too  much  reason  to 
know,  that  every  one  else  was  a  gentleman  like 
himself,  penetrated  by  the  old  traditions  of  the 
House  of  Commons. 

While  superior  to  the  prejudices  of  the  old- 


Sir  Stafford  Northcote  223 

fashioned  wing  of  his  party,  he  was  too  cautious 
and  conscientious  to  join  those  who  sought  to 
lead  it  into  demagogic  courses.  So  far  as 
political  opinions  went,  he  might,  had  fortune 
sent  him  into  the  world  as  the  son  of  a  Whig 
family,  have  made  an  excellent  Whig,  removed 
as  far  from  high  Toryism  on  the  one  hand  as 
from  Radicalism  on  the  other.  There  was,  there¬ 
fore,  a  certain  incompatibility  between  the  man 
and  the  position.  Average  partisans  felt  that  a 
leader  so  very  reasonable  was  not  in  full  sym¬ 
pathy  with  them.  Even  his  invincible  optimism 
displeased  them.  “  Hang  that  fellow  Northcote,” 
said  one  of  them,  “  he’s  always  seeing  blue  sky.” 
The  militant  partisans,  whatever  their  opinions, 
desired  a  pugnacious  chief.  That  a  leader 
should  draw  the  enemy’s  fire  does  him  good  with 
his  followers,  and  makes  them  rally  to  him.  But 
the  fire  of  his  opponents  was  hardly  ever  directed 
against  Northcote,  even  when  controversy  was 
hottest.  Had  he  possessed  a  more  imperious 
will,  he  might  have  overcome  these  difficulties, 
because  his  abilities  and  experience  were  of 
the  highest  value  to  his  party,  and  his  char¬ 
acter  stood  so  high  that  the  mass  of  sensible 
Tories  all  over  the  country  might  perhaps  have 
rallied  to  him,  if  he  had  appealed  to  them 
against  the  intrigues  by  which  it  was  sought  to 
supplant  him.  He  did  not  lack  courage.  But 
he  lacked  what  men  call  “  backbone.”  For 


224  Biographical  Studies 

practical  success,  it  is  less  fatal  to  fail  in  wisdom 
than  to  fail  in  resolution.  He  had  not  that  un¬ 
quenchable  self-confidence  which  I  have  sought 
to  describe  in  Disraeli,  and  shall  have  to  de¬ 
scribe  in  Parnell  and  in  Gladstone.  He  yielded 
to  pressure,  and  people  came  to  know  that  he 
would  yield  to  pressure. 

The  end  of  it  was  that  the  weakened  prestige 
and  final  fall  of  the  Liberal  Ministry  were  not 
credited  to  his  generalship,  but  rather  to  those 
who  had  skirmished  in  advance  of  the  main  army. 
That  fall  was  in  reality  due  neither  to  him  nor  to 
them,  but  partly  to  the  errors  or  internal  divisions 
of  the  Ministry  itself,  partly  to  causes  such  as  the 
condition  of  Ireland  and  the  revolt  of  Arabi  in 
Egypt,  for  which  Mr.  Gladstone’s  Cabinet  was 
no  more,  perhaps  less,  to  blame  than  many  of 
its  predecessors.  No  Ministry  of  recent  years 
seemed,  when  it  was  formed,  to  have  such  a 
source  of  strength  in  the  abilities  of  the  men  who 
composed  it  as  did  the  Ministry  of  1880.  None 
proved  so  persistently  unlucky. 

The  circumstances  under  which  Northcote’s 
leadership  came  to  an  end  by  his  elevation  to  the 
Upper  House  (June  1885)  as  Earl  of  Iddesleigh, 
as  well  as  those  under  which  he  was  subsequently 
(1887)  removed  from  the  post  of  Foreign  Secre¬ 
tary  in  the  then  Tory  Ministry,  evoked  much 
comment  at  the  time,  but  some  of  the  incidents 
attending  them  have  not  yet  been  disclosed,  and 


Sir  Stafford  Northcote  225 

they  could  not  be  discussed  without  bringing  in 
other  persons  with  whom  I  am  not  here  concerned. 
Conscious  of  his  own  loyalty  to  his  party,  and 
remembering  his  long  and  laborious  services,  he 
felt  those  circumstances  deeply  ;  and  they  may  have 
hastened  his  death,  which  came  very  suddenly  in 
February  1887,  and  called  forth  a  burst  of  sympathy 
such  as  had  not  been  seen  since  Peel  perished  by 
an  accident  nearly  forty  years  before. 

In  private  life  Northcote  had  the  charm  of 
unpretending  manners,  coupled  with  abundant 
humour,  a  store  of  anecdote,  and  a  geniality 
which  came  straight  from  the  heart.  No  man 
was  a  more  agreeable  companion.  In  1884, 
when  the  University  of  Edinburgh  celebrated 
its  tercentenary,  he  happened  to  be  Lord  Rector, 
and  in  that  capacity  had  to  preside  over  the  fes¬ 
tivities.  Although  a  stranger  to  Scotland,  and  as 
far  removed  (for  he  was  a  decided  High  Church¬ 
man)  from  sympathy  with  Scottish  Presbyterian¬ 
ism  as  he  was  removed  in  politics  from  the 
Liberalism  then  dominant  in  Edinburgh,  he  won 
golden  opinions  from  the  Scotch,  as  well  as  from 
the  crowd  of  foreign  visitors,  by  the  tact  and 
grace  he  showed  in  the  discharge  of  his  duties, 
and  the  skill  with  which,  putting  off  the  politi¬ 
cian,  he  entered  into  the  spirit  of  the  occasion  as 
a  lover  of  letters  and  learning.  Though  political 
eminence  had  secured  his  election  to  the  office, 
every  one  felt  that  it  would  have  been  hard  to  find 


226  Biographical  Studies 

in  the  ranks  of  literature  and  science  any  one 
fitter  to  preside  over  such  a  gathering. 

He  left  behind  few  in  whom  the  capacities 
of  the  administrator  were  so  happily  blended  with 
a  philosophic  judgment  and  a  wide  culture.  It  is 
a  combination  which  was  inadequately  appreciated 
in  his  own  person.  Vehemence  in  controversy, 
domineering  audacity  of  purpose,  the  power  of 
moving  crowds  by  incisive  harangues,  were  the 
qualities  which  the  younger  generation  seemed 
disposed  to  cultivate.  They  are  qualities  apt  to  be 
valued  in  times  of  strife  and  change,  times  when 
men  are  less  concerned  to  study  and  apply  prin¬ 
ciples  than  to  rouse  the  passions  and  consolidate 
the  organisation  of  their  party,  while  dazzling  the 
nation  by  large  promises  or  bold  strokes  of  policy. 
For  such  courses  Northcote  was  not  the  man. 
Were  it  to  be  observed  of  him  that  he  was  too 
good  for  the  work  he  had  to  do,  it  might  be 
answered  that  political  leadership  is  work  for 
which  no  man  can  be  too  good,  and  that  it  was 
rather  because  his  force  of  will  and  his  combative¬ 
ness  were  not  commensurate  with  his  other  gifts, 
that  those  other  gifts  did  not  have  their  full  effect 
and  win  their  due  success.  Yet  this  at  least  may 
be  said,  that  if  he  had  been  less  amiable,  less  fair- 
minded,  and  less  open-minded,  he  would  have 
retained  his  leadership  to  the  end. 


CHARLES  STEWART  PARNELL 

Though  I  do  not  propose  to  write  even  the  brief¬ 
est  narrative  of  Parnell’s  life,  but  only  to  note  cer¬ 
tain  salient  features  of  his  intellect  and  character, 
it  may  be  well  to  state  a  few  facts  and  dates ;  for 
in  these  days  of  rapid  change  and  hasty  reading, 
facts  soon  pass  out  of  most  men’s  memories, 
leaving  only  vague  impressions  behind.1 

He  belonged  to  a  family  which,  established  at 
Congleton  in  Cheshire,  had  at  the  time  of  the 
Restoration  migrated  to  Ireland,  had  settled  on 
an  estate  in  Wicklow,  and  had  produced  in  every 
subsequent  generation  a  person  of  distinction. 
Thomas  Parnell,  the  friend  of  Pope  and  Swift, 
is  still  remembered  by  his  poem  of  The  Hermit. 
Another  Parnell  (Sir  John)  was  Chancellor  of 
the  Irish  Exchequer  in  the  days  of  Henry 
Grattan,  whose  opinions  he  shared.  Another 
(Sir  Henry)  was  a  leading  Irish  Liberal  mem¬ 
ber  of  the  House  of  Commons,  and  died  by  his 
own  hand  in  1842.  Charles’s  father  and  grand- 

1  The  Life  of  Parnell ,  by  Mr.  R.  Barry  O’Brien,  has  taken  rank  among 
the  best  biographies  of  the  last  half-century. 


227 


228  Biographical  Studies 

father  figured  less  in  the  public  eye.  But  his 
mother  was  a  remarkable  woman,  and  the  daugh¬ 
ter  of  a  remarkable  man,  Commodore  Charles 
Stewart,  one  of  the  most  brilliant  naval  com¬ 
manders  on  the  American  side  in  the  War  of 
1812.  Stewart  was  the  son  of  a  Scoto- Irishman 
from  Ulster,  who  had  emigrated  to  America  in 
the  middle  of  the  eighteenth  century;  so  there 
was  a  strain  of  Scottish  as  well  as  a  fuller  strain 
of  English  blood  in  the  most  powerful  Irish 
leader  of  recent  times. 

Parnell  was  born  at  Avondale,  the  family  estate 
in  Wicklow,  in  1846,  and  was  educated  mostly  at 
private  schools  in  England.  He  spent  some 
months  at  Magdalene  College,  Cambridge,  but, 
having  been  rusticated  for  an  affray  in  the  street, 
refused  to  return  to  the  College,  and  finished  his 
education  for  himself  at  home.  It  was  a  very  im¬ 
perfect  education.  He  cared  nothing  for  study, 
and  indeed  showed  interest  only  in  mathematics 
and  cricket.  In  1874  he  stood  as  a  candidate  for 
Parliament,  but  without  success.  When  he  had 
to  make  a  speech  he  broke  down  utterly.  In 
1875  he  was  returned  as  member  for  the  county 
of  Meath,  and  within  two  years  had  made  his 
mark  in  the  House  of  Commons.  In  1880  he  was 
elected  leader  of  the  Irish  Parliamentary  party,  and 
ruled  it  and  his  followers  in  Ireland  with  a  rod  of 
iron  until  he  was  deposed,  in  1890,  at  the  instance 
of  the  leaders  of  the  English  Liberal  party,  who 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  229 

thought  that  the  verdict  against  him  in  a  divorce 
suit  in  which  he  was  co-respondent  had  fatally 
discredited  him  in  the  eyes  of  the  bulk  of  the 
English  Liberal  party,  and  made  co-operation 
with  him  impossible.  Refusing  to  resign  his 
leadership,  he  conducted  a  campaign  in  Ireland 
against  the  majority  of  his  former  followers  with 
extraordinary  energy  till  November  1891,  when 
he  died  of  rheumatic  fever  after  a  short  illness. 
A  constitution  which  had  never  been  strong  was 
worn  out  by  the  ceaseless  exertions  and  mental 
tension  of  the  last  twelve  months. 

The  whole  of  his  political  activity  was  com¬ 
prised  within  a  period  of  sixteen  years,  during 
ten  of  which  he  led  the  Irish  Nationalist  party, 
exercising  an  authority  more  absolute  than  any 
Irish  leader  had  exercised  before. 

It  has  often  been  observed  that  he  was  not 
Irish,  and  that  he  led  the  Irish  people  with  success 
just  because  he  did  not  share  their  characteristic 
weaknesses.  But  it  is  equally  true  that  he  was 
not  English.  One  always  felt  the  difference 
between  his  temperament  and  that  of  the  normal 
Englishman.  The  same  remark  applies  to  some 
other  famous  Irish  leaders.  Wolfe  Tone,  for 
instance,  and  Fitzgibbon  (afterwards  Lord  Clare) 
were  unlike  the  usual  type  of  Irishman  —  that  is, 
the  Irishman  in  whom  the  Celtic  element  pre¬ 
dominates  ;  but  they  were  also  unlike  English¬ 
men.  The  Anglo-Irish  Protestants,  a  strong  race 


230  Biographical  Studies 

who  have  produced  a  number  of  remarkable  men 
in  excess  of  the  proportion  they  bear  to  the 
whole  population  of  the  United  Kingdom,  fall 
into  two  classes  —  the  men  of  North-Eastern 
Ulster,  in  whom  there  is  so  large  an  infusion 
of  Scottish  blood  that  they  may  almost  be  called 
“  Scotchmen  with  a  difference,”  and  the  men 
of  Leinster  and  Munster,  who  are  true  Anglo- 
Celts.  It  was  to  this  latter  class  that  Parnell 
belonged.  They  are  a  group  by  themselves,  in 
whom  some  of  the  fire  and  impulsiveness  of  the 
Celt  has  been  blended  with  some  of  the  firmness, 
the  tenacity,  and  the  close  hold  upon  facts  which 
belong  to  the  Englishman.  Mr.  Parnell,  how¬ 
ever,  though  he  might  be  reckoned  to  the  Anglo- 
Irish  type,  was  not  a  normal  specimen  of  it.  He 
was  a  man  whom  you  could  not  refer  to  any 
category,  peculiar  both  in  his  intellect  and  in 
his  character  generally. 

His  intellect  was  eminently  practical.  He 
did  not  love  speculation  or  the  pursuit  of  ab¬ 
stract  truth,  nor  had  he  a  taste  for  literature, 
still  less  a  delight  in  learning  for  its  own  sake. 
Even  of  the  annals  of  Ireland  his  knowledge 
was  most  slender.  He  had  no  grasp  of  constitu¬ 
tional  questions,  and  was  not  able  to  give  any 
help  in  the  construction  of  a  Home  Rule  scheme 
in  1886.  His  general  reading  had  been  scanty, 
and  his  speeches  show  no  acquaintance  either 
with  history,  beyond  the  commonest  facts,  or  with 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  231 

any  other  subject  connected  with  politics.  Very 
rarely  did  they  contain  a  maxim  or  reflection  of 
general  applicability,  apart  from  the  particular 
topic  he  was  discussing.  Nor  did  he  ever 
attempt  to  give  to  them  the  charm  of  literary 
ornament.  All  was  dry,  direct,  and  practical, 
without  so  much  as  a  graceful  phrase  or  a 
choice  epithet.  Sometimes,  when  addressing  a 
great  public  meeting,  he  would  seek  to  rouse  the 
audience  by  vehement  language;  but  though  there 
might  be  a  glow  of  suppressed  passion,  there 
were  no  flashes  of  imaginative  light.  Yet  he 
never  gave  the  impression  of  an  uneducated  man. 
His  language,  though  it  lacked  distinction,  was 
clear  and  grammatical.  His  taste  was  correct. 
It  was  merely  that  he  did  not  care  for  any  of 
those  things  which  men  of  ability  comparable  to 
his  usually  do  care  for.  His  only  interests,  out¬ 
side  politics,  lay  in  mechanics  and  engineering 
and  in  the  development  of  the  material  resources 
of  his  country.  He  took  pains  to  manage  his 
estate  well,  and  was  specially  anxious  to  make 
something  out  of  his  stone  quarries,  and  to  learn 
what  could  be  done  in  the  way  of  finding  and 
working  minerals. 

Those  who  observed  that  he  was  almost 
always  occupied  in  examining  and  attacking  the 
measures  or  the  conduct  of  those  who  governed 
Ireland  were  apt  to  think  his  talent  a  purely 
critical  one.  They  were  mistaken.  Critical, 


232  Biographical  Studies 

indeed,  it  was,  in  a  remarkable  degree;  keen, 
penetrating,  stringently  dissective  of  the  arguments 
of  an  opponent,  ingenious  in  taking  advantage  of 
a  false  step  in  administration  or  of  an  admission 
imprudently  made  in  debate.  But  it  had  also  a 
positive  and  constructive  quality.  From  time  to 
time  he  would  drop  his  negative  attitude  and 
sketch  out  plans  of  legislation  which  were  always 
consistent  and  weighty,  though  not  made  attrac¬ 
tive  by  any  touch  of  imagination.  They  were  the 
schemes  not  so  much  of  a  statesman  as  of  an  able 
man  of  business,  who  saw  the  facts,  especially 
the  financial  facts,  in  a  sharp,  cold  light,  and 
they  seldom  went  beyond  what  the  facts  could  be 
made  to  prove.  And  his  ideas  struck  one  as 
being  not  only  forcible  but  independent,  the  fruit 
of  his  own  musings.  Although  he  freely  used 
the  help  of  others  in  collecting  facts  or  opinions, 
he  did  not  seem  to  be  borrowing  the  ideas, 
but  rather  to  have  looked  at  things  for  him¬ 
self,  and  seen  them  as  they  actually  were,  in 
their  true  perspective,  not  (like  many  Irishmen) 
through  the  mists  of  sentiment  or  party  feeling. 
The  impression  made  by  one  of  his  more  elabo¬ 
rate  speeches  might  be  compared  to  that  which 
one  receives  from  a  grey  sunless  day  with  an  east 
wind,  a  day  in  which  everything  shows  clear,  but 
also  hard  and  cold. 

To  call  his  mind  a  narrow  one,  as  people  some¬ 
times  did,  was  to  wrong  it.  If  the  range  of  his 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  233 

interests  was  limited,  his  intelligence  was  not 
Equal  to  any  task  it  undertook,  it  judged  soundly, 
appreciating  the  whole  phenomena  of  the  case, 
men  and  things  that  had  no  sort  of  attraction  for 
it.  There  was  less  pleasure  in  watching  its 
activities  than  the  observation  of  a  superior 
mind  generally  affords,  for  it  was  always  directed 
to  immediate  aims,  and  it  wanted  the  originality 
which  is  fertile  in  ideas  and  analogies.  It 
was  not  discursive,  not  versatile,  not  apt  to 
generalise.  It  did  not  rejoice  in  the  exercise  of 
thought  for  thought’s  sake,  but  felt  itself  to  be 
merely  a  useful  instrument  for  performing  the 
definite  practical  work  which  the  will  required 
of  it. 

If,  however,  the  intellect  of  the  man  could 
not  be  called  interesting,  his  character  had  at 
least  this  interest,  that  it  gave  one  many 
problems  to  solve,  and  could  not  easily  be 
covered  by  any  formulae.  An  observer  who 
followed  the  old  method  of  explaining  every 
man  by  ascribing  to  him  a  single  ruling  passion, 
would  have  said  that  his  ruling  passion  was 
pride.  The  pride  was  so  strong  that  it 
almost  extinguished  vanity.  Parnell  did  not 
appear  to  seek  occasions  for  display,  frequently 
neglecting  those  which  other  men  would  have 
chosen,  seldom  seeming  to  be  elated  by  the 
applause  of  crowds,  and  treating  the  House  of 
Commons  with  equal  coolness  whether  it  cheered 


234  Biographical  Studies 

him  or  howled  at  him.  He  cared  nothing  for 
any  social  compliments  or  attentions,  rarely 
accepted  an  invitation  to  dinner,  dressed  with 
little  care  and  often  in  clothes  whose  style  and 
colour  seemed  unworthy  of  his  position.  He 
was  believed  to  be  haughty  and  distant  to  his 
followers ;  and  although  he  could  occasionally 
be  kindly  and  even  genial,  scarcely  any  were 
admitted  to  intimacy,  and  few  of  the  ordinary 
signs  of  familiarity  could  be  observed  between 
him  and  them.  Towards  other  persons  he  was 
sufficiently  polite  but  warily  reserved,  show¬ 
ing  no  desire  for  the  cultivation  of  friend¬ 
ship,  or,  indeed,  for  any  relations  but  those 
of  business.  Of  some  ordinary  social  duties, 
such  as  opening  and  answering  letters,  he  was, 
especially  in  later  years,  more  neglectful  than 
good  breeding  permits ;  and  men  doubted 
whether  to  ascribe  this  fault  to  indolence  or  to 
a  superb  disregard  of  everybody  but  himself. 
Such  disregard  he  often  showed  in  greater 
matters,  taking  no  notice  of  attacks  made 
upon  him  which  he  might  have  refuted,  and 
intimating  to  the  English  his  indifference  to 
their  praise  or  blame.  On  one  remarkable 
occasion,  at  the  beginning  of  the  session  of 
1883,  he  was  denounced  by  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster 
in  a  long  and  bitter  speech,  which  told  power¬ 
fully  upon  the  House.  Many  instances  were 
given  in  which  Irish  members  had  palliated 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  235 

or  failed  to  condemn  criminal  acts,  and  Parnell 
was  arraigned  as  the  head  and  front  of  this  line 
of  conduct,  and  thus  virtually  responsible  for  the 
outrages  that  had  occurred.  The  Irish  leader, 
who  had  listened  in  impassive  silence,  broken 
only  by  one  interjected  contradiction,  to  this 
fierce  invective,  did  not  rise  to  reply,  and  was 
with  difficulty  induced  by  his  followers  to  de¬ 
liver  his  defence  on  the  following  day.  To  the 
astonishment  of  every  one,  that  defence  con¬ 
sisted  in  a  declaration,  delivered  in  a  cold, 
careless,  almost  scornful  way,  that  for  all  he 
said  or  did  in  Ireland  he  held  himself  respon¬ 
sible  to  his  countrymen  only,  and  did  not  in 
the  least  regard  what  Englishmen  thought  of 
him.  It  was  an  answer  not  of  defence  but  of 
defiance. 

Even  to  his  countrymen  he  could  on  occasion 
be  disdainful,  expecting  them  to  defer  to  his  own 
judgment  of  his  own  course.  He  would  some¬ 
times  remain  away  from  Parliament  for  weeks 
together,  although  important  business  might  be 
under  consideration,  perhaps  would  vanish  alto¬ 
gether  from  public  ken.  Yet  this  lordly  attitude 
and  the  air  of  mystery  which  surrounded  him 
did  not  seem  to  be  studied  with  a  view  to  effect. 
They  were  due  to  his  habit  of  thinking  first  and 
chiefly  of  himself.  If  he  desired  to  indulge  his 
inclinations,  he  indulged  them.  Some  extremely 
strong  motive  of  passion  or  interest  might  in- 


236  Biographical  Studies 

terpose  to  restrain  this  desire  and  stimulate 
him  to  an  unwelcome  exertion ;  but  no  respect 
for  the  opinion  of  others,  nor  fear  of  censure 
from  his  allies  or  friends,  would  be  allowed  to 
do  so. 

This  boundless  self-confidence  and  independ¬ 
ence  greatly  contributed  to  his  success  as  a  leader. 
His  faith  in  his  star  inspired  a  conviction  that 
obstacles  whose  reality  his  judgment  recognised 
would  ultimately  yield  to  his  will,  and  gave  him  in 
moments  of  crisis  an  undismayed  fortitude  which 
only  once  forsook  him  —  in  the  panic  which  was 
suddenly  created  by  the  Phoenix  Park  murders  of 
May  1882.  The  confidence  which  he  felt,  or  ap¬ 
peared  to  feel,  reacted  upon  his  party,  and  became 
a  chief  ground  of  their  obedience  to  him  and  their 
belief  in  his  superior  wisdom.  His  calmness,  his 
tenacity,  his  patience,  his  habit  of  listening  quietly 
to  every  one,  but  deciding  for  himself,  were  all 
evidences  of  that  resolute  will  which  imposed 
itself  upon  the  Irish  masses  no  less  than  upon 
his  Parliamentary  following,  and  secured  for  him 
a  loyalty  in  which  there  was  little  or  nothing  of 
personal  affection. 

In  these  several  respects  his  overweening  pride 
was  a  source  of  strength.  In  another  direction, 
however,  it  proved  a  source  of  weakness.  There 
are  men  in  whom  the  want  of  moral  principle, 
of  noble  emotions,  or  of  a  scrupulous  conscience 
and  nice  sense  of  honour,  is  partly  replaced  by 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  237 

deference  to  the  opinion  of  their  class  or  of  the 
world.  Such  men  may  hold  through  life  a 
tolerably  upright  course,  neither  from  the  love 
of  virtue  nor  because  they  are  ambitious  and 
anxious  to  stand  well  with  those  whom  they 
aspire  to  influence  or  rule,  but  because,  having 
a  sense  of  personal  dignity,  combined  with  a 
perception  of  what  pleases  or  offends  man¬ 
kind,  they  are  resolved  to  do  nothing  whereby 
their  good  name  can  be  tarnished  or  an  opening 
given  to  malicious  tongues.  But  when  pride 
towers  to  such  a  height  as  to  become  a  law  to 
itself,  disregarding  the  judgment  of  others,  it 
may  not  only  lead  its  possessor  into  an  attitude 
of  defiance  which  the  world  resents,  but  may 
make  him  stoop  to  acts  of  turpitude  which  dis¬ 
credit  his  character.  Mr.  Parnell  was  certainly 
not  a  scrupulous  man.  Without  dwelling  upon 
the  circumstances  attending  the  divorce  case 
already  referred  to,  or  upon  his  betrayal  of  Mr. 
Gladstone’s  confidences,  and  his  reckless  appeals 
during  the  last  year  of  his  life  to  the  most  in¬ 
flammable  elements  in  Ireland,  there  are  facts 
enough  in  his  earlier  career  to  show  that  he  had 
little  regard  for  truth  and  little  horror  for  crime. 
A  revolution  may  extenuate  some  sins,  but  even 
in  a  revolution  there  are  men  (and  sometimes 
the  strongest  men)  whose  moral  excellence  shines 
through  the  smoke  of  conflict  and  the  mists  of 
detraction.  In  Mr.  Parnell’s  nature  the  moral 


238  Biographical  Studies 

element  was  imperfectly  developed.  He  seemed 
cynical  and  callous ;  and  it  was  probably  his 
haughty  self-reliance  which  prevented  him  from 
sufficiently  deferring  to  the  ordinary  moralities 
of  mankind.  His  pride,  which  ought  to  have 
kept  him  free  from  the  suspicion  of  dishonour, 
made  him  feel  himself  dispensed  from  the  usual 
restraints.  Whatever  he  did  was  right  in  his 
own  eyes,  and  no  other  eyes  need  be  regarded. 
Phenomena  somewhat  similar  were  observable  in 
Napoleon.  But  Napoleon,  though  he  came  of  a 
good  family,  was  obviously  not  a  gentleman  in 
the  common  sense  of  the  term.  Mr.  Parnell 
was  a  gentleman  in  that  sense.  He  had  the 
bearing,  the  manners,  the  natural  easy  dignity 
of  a  man  of  birth  who  has  always  moved  in 
good  society.  He  rarely  permitted  any  one  to 
take  liberties  with  him,  even  the  innocent  liber¬ 
ties  of  familiar  intercourse.  This  made  his  de¬ 
partures  from  what  may  be  called  the  inner 
and  higher  standard  of  gentlemanly  conduct  all 
the  more  remarkable. 

He  has  been  accused  of  a  want  of  physical 
courage.  He  did  no  doubt  after  the  Phoenix 
Park  murders  ask  the  authorities  in  England  for 
police  protection,  being,  not  unnaturally,  in  fear 
for  his  life ;  and  he  habitually  carried  firearms. 
He  was  at  times  in  danger,  and  there  was  every 
reason  why  he  should  be  prepared  to  defend  him¬ 
self.  An  anecdote  was  told  of  another  member 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  239 

of  the  House  of  Commons  whose  initials  were  the 
same  as  his  own,  and  who,  taking  what  he  sup¬ 
posed  to  be  his  own  overcoat  from  the  peg  on 
which  it  hung  in  the  cloak  room  of  the  House, 
was  startled  when  he  put  his  hand  into  the  pocket 
to  feel  in  it  the  cold  iron  of  a  pistol.  Moral 
courage  he  showed  in  a  high  degree  during 
his  whole  public  career,  facing  his  antagonists 
with  an  unshaken  front,  even  when  they  were 
most  numerous  and  bitter.  Though  he  intensely 
disliked  imprisonment,  the  terms  on  which  he 
came  out  of  Kilmainham  Gaol  left  no  discredit 
upon  him.  He  behaved  with  perfect  dignity 
under  the  attacks  of  the  press  in  1887,  and  in 
the  face  of  the  use  made  of  letters  attributed  to 
him  which  turned  out  to  have  been  forged  by 
Richard  Pigott  —  letters  which  the  bulk  of  the 
English  upper  classes  had  greedily  swallowed. 
With  this  courage  and  dignity  there  was,  however, 
little  trace  of  magnanimity.  He  seldom  said  a 
generous  word,  or  showed  himself  responsive  to 
such  a  word  spoken  by  another.  Accustomed  to 
conceal  his  feelings,  except  in  his  most  excited 
moments,  he  rarely  revealed,  but  he  certainly 
cherished,  vindictive  sentiments.  He  never  for¬ 
gave  either  Mr.  W.  E.  Forster  or  Mr.  Gladstone 

O 

for  having  imprisoned  him  in  1 88 1  ; 1  and  though 


1  An  anecdote  was  told  at  the  time  that  when  he  found  himself  in  the 
prison  yard  at  Kilmainham,  he  said,  in  a  sort  of  soliloquy,  “I  shall  live 
yet  to  dance  upon  those  two  old  men’s  graves.” 


240  Biographical  Studies 

he  stood  in  some  awe  of  the  latter,  whom  he 
considered  the  only  really  formidable  antagonist 
he  had  ever  had  to  confront,  he  bore  a  grudge 
which  smouldered  under  the  reconciliation  of  1886 
and  leapt  into  flame  in  the  manifesto  of  November 
1890. 

The  union  in  Mr.  Parnell  of  intense  passion 
with  strenuous  self-control  struck  all  who  watched 
him  closely,  though  it  was  seldom  that  passion 
so  far  escaped  as  to  make  the  contrast  visibly 
dramatic.  Usually  he  was  cold,  grave,  deliberate, 
repelling  advances  with  a  sort  of  icy  courtesy. 
He  hardly  ever  lost  his  temper  in  the  House  of 
Commons,  even  in  his  last  session  under  the 
sarcasms  of  his  former  friends,  though  the  low, 
almost  hissing  tones  of  his  voice  sometimes  be¬ 
trayed  an  internal  struggle.  But  during  the 
electoral  campaign  in  Kilkenny,  in  December 
1890,  when  he  was  fighting  for  his  life,  he  was 
more  than  once  so  swept  away  by  anger  that 
those  beside  him  had  to  hold  him  back  from 
jumping  off  the  platform  into  the  crowd  to  strike 
down  some  one  who  had  interrupted  him.  Sus¬ 
pended  for  a  moment,  his  mastery  of  himself 
quickly  returned.  Men  were  astonished  to 
observe  how,  after  some  of  the  stormy  passages 
at  the  meetings  of  Irish  members  held  in  one 
of  the  House  of  Commons  committee  rooms  in 
December  1890,  he  would  address  quietly,  per¬ 
haps  lay  his  hand  upon  the  shoulder  of,  some  one 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  241 

of  the  colleagues  who  had  just  been  denouncing 
him,  and  on  whom  he  had  poured  all  the  vitriol 
of  his  fierce  tongue.  As  this  could  not  have 
been  good-nature,  it  must  have  been  either 
calculated  policy  or  a  pride  that  would  not 
accept  an  injury  from  those  whom  he  had  been 
wont  to  deem  his  subjects.  Spontaneous  kindli¬ 
ness  was  never  ascribed  to  him ;  nor  had  he, 
so  far  as  could  be  known,  a  single  intimate 
friend. 

Oratory  is  the  usual  avenue  to  leadership  in  a 
democratic  movement,  and  Mr.  Parnell  is  one  of 
the  very  few  who  have  arrived  at  power  neither 
by  that  road  nor  by  military  success.  So  far 
from  having  by  nature  any  of  the  gifts  or  graces 
of  a  popular  speaker,  he  was  at  first  conspicuously 
deficient  in  them,  and  became  at  last  effective 
only  by  constant  practice,  and  by  an  intellectual 
force  which  asserted  itself  through  commonplace¬ 
ness  of  language  and  a  monotonous  delivery. 
Fluency  was  wanting,  and  even  moderate  ease 
was  acquired  only  after  four  or  five  years’  practice. 
His  voice  was  neither  powerful  nor  delicate  in  its 
modulations,  but  it  was  clear,  and  the  enunciation 
deliberate  and  distinct,  quiet  when  the  matter 
was  ordinary,  slow  and  emphatic  when  an  impor¬ 
tant  point  arrived.  With  very  little  action  of  the 
body,  there  was  often  an  interesting  and  obviously 
unstudied  display  of  facial  expression.  So  far  from 
glittering  with  the  florid  rhetoric  supposed  to 

R 


2\2  Biographical  Studies 

characterise  Irish  eloquence,  his  speeches  were 
singularly  plain,  bare,  and  dry.  Neither  had 
they  any  humour.  If  they  ever  raised  a  smile, 
which  seldom  happened,  it  was  by  some  touch  of 
sarcasm  or  adroit  thrust  at  a  point  left  unguarded 
by  an  adversary.  Their  merit  lay  in  their 
lucidity,  in  their  aptness  to  the  matter  in  hand, 
in  the  strong  practical  sense  which  ran  through 
them,  coupled  with  the  feeling  that  they  came 
from  one  who  led  a  nation,  and  whose  forecasts 
had  often  fulfilled  themselves.  They  were  care¬ 
fully  prepared,  and  usually  made  from  pretty 
full  notes;  but  the  preparation  had  been  given 
rather  to  the  matter  and  the  arrangement  than  to 
the  diction,  which  had  rarely  any  ornament  or 
literary  finish.  Of  late  years  he  spoke  infre¬ 
quently,  whether  from  indolence  or  from  weak 
health,  or  because  he  thought  little  was  to  be 
done  in  the  face  of  a  hostile  majority,  now  that 
the  tactics  of  obstruction  had  been  abandoned. 
When  he  interposed  without  preparation  in  a 
debate  which  had  arisen  unexpectedly,  he  was 
short,  pithy,  and  direct;  indeed,  nothing  was 
more  characteristic  of  Parnell  than  his  talent 
for  hitting  the  nail  on  the  head,  a  talent  which 
always  commands  attention  in  deliberative  assem¬ 
blies.  No  one  saw  more  clearly  or  conveyed  in 
terser  language  the  course  which  the  circumstances 
of  the  moment  required  ;  and  as  his  mastery  of 
parliamentary  procedure  and  practice  came  next 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  243 

to  that  of  Mr.  Gladstone,  any  advice  that  he 
gave  to  the  House  on  a  point  of  order  carried 
weight.  It  would  indeed  be  no  exaggeration  to 
say  that  during  the  sessions  of  1889  and  1890 
he  was  distinctly  the  second  man  in  the  House 
of  Commons,  surpassed  in  debating  power  by 
five  or  six  others,  but  inferior  to  Mr.  Gladstone 
alone  in  the  interest  which  his  speeches  excited 
and  in  the  impression  they  produced.  Along 
with  this  access  of  influence  his  attitude  and  the 
spirit  of  his  policy  appeared  to  rise  and  widen. 
There  was  less  of  that  hard  attorneyism  which 
had  marked  his  criticisms  of  the  Tory  Government 
and  their  measures  up  till  March  1880,  and  of  the 
Liberal  Government  and  their  measures  during 
the  five  following  years.  He  seemed  to  grow 
more  and  more  to  the  full  stature  of  a  statesman, 
with  constructive  views  and  a  willingness  to  make 
the  best  of  the  facts  as  he  found  them.  Yet  even 
in  this  later  and  better  time  one  note  of  great¬ 
ness  was  absent  from  his  speeches.  There  was 
nothing  genial  or  generous  or  elevated  about 
them.  They  never  soared  into  an  atmosphere 
of  lofty  feeling,  worthy  of  the  man  who  was  by 
this  time  deemed  to  be  leading  his  nation  to 
victory,  and  who  had  begun  to  be  admired  and 
honoured  by  one  of  the  two  great  historic  English 
parties. 

Parnell  was  not  only  versed  in  the  rules  of 
parliamentary  procedure,  but  also  a  consummate 


244  Biographical  Studies 

master  of  parliamentary  tactics.  Soon  after  he 
entered  the  House  of  Commons  he  detected  its 
weak  point,  and  perfected  a  system  of  obstruc¬ 
tion  which  so  destroyed  the  efficiency  of  its  time- 
honoured  modes  of  doing  business  that  new  sets 
of  rules,  each  more  stringent  than  the  preceding, 
had  to  be  devised  between  1878  and  1888.  The 
skill  with  which  he  handled  his  small  but  well- 
disciplined  battalion  was  admirable.  He  was 
strict  with  individuals,  requiring  absolute  obedience 
to  the  party  rules,  but  ready  to  gratify  any  pre¬ 
vailing  current  of  feeling  when  he  saw  that 
this  could  be  done  without  harm  to  the  cause. 
More  than  once,  when  English  members  who 
happened  to  be  acting  with  him  on  some  particular 
question  pressed  him  to  keep  his  men  quiet  and 
let  a  division  be  taken  at  once,  he  answered  that 
they  were  doubtless  right  in  thinking  that  the 
moment  for  securing  a  good  division  had  arrived, 
but  that  he  must  not  muzzle  his  followers  when 
they  wanted  to  have  their  fling.  The  best 
proof  of  the  tact  with  which  he  ruled  a  section 
comprising  many  men  of  brilliant  talents  lies 
in  the  fact  that  there  was  no  serious  revolt, 
or  movement  towards  revolt,  against  him  until 
the  breach  of  1^90  between  himself  and  the 
Liberal  party  had  led  to  the  belief  that  his  con¬ 
tinued  leadership  would  mean  defeat  at  the  polls 
in  Great  Britain,  and  the  postponement,  perhaps 
for  many  years,  of  Home  Rule  for  Ireland. 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  245 

Parnell’s  political  views  and  tendencies  were 
eagerly  canvassed  by  those  who  had  studied 
him  closely.  Many,  among  both  Englishmen 
and  Irishmen,  held  that  he  was  at  heart  a  Con¬ 
servative,  valuing  strong  government  and  attached 
to  the  rights  of  property.  They  predicted  that 
if  an  Irish  Parliament  had  been  established,  as 
proposed  by  Mr.  Gladstone  in  1886,  and  an 
Irish  cabinet  formed  to  administer  the  affairs 
of  the  island,  Parnell  would  have  been  the  in¬ 
evitable  and  somewhat  despotic  leader  of  the 
party  of  authority  and  order.  His  co-opera¬ 
tion  with  the  agrarian  agitators  from  1879  on¬ 
wards  was  in  this  view  merely  a  politic  expedient 
to  gain  support  for  the  Home  Rule  campaign. 
For  this  theory  there  is  much  to  be  said.  Though 
he  came  to  lead  a  revolution,  and  was  willing, 
as  appeared  in  the  last  few  months  of  his  life,  to 
appeal  to  the  genuine  revolutionary  party,  Parnell 
was  not  by  temper  or  conviction  a  revolutionist. 
Those  who  were  left  in  Ireland  of  the  old  Fenian 
group,  and  especially  that  section  of  the  extreme 
Fenians  out  of  which  the  secret  insurrectionary 
and  dynamitard  societies  were  formed,  never 
liked  or  trusted  him.  The  passion  which  origi¬ 
nally  carried  him  into  public  life  was  hatred  of 
England,  and  a  wish  to  restore  to  Ireland,  if 
possible,  her  national  independence  (though  he 
rarely  if  ever  avowed  this),  or  at  least  her 
own  Parliament.  But  he  was  no  democratic 


246  Biographical  Studies 

leveller,  and  still  less  inclined  to  those  socialistic 
doctrines  which  the  section  influenced  by  Mr. 
Davitt  had  espoused.  He  did  not  desire  the 
“  extinction  of  landlordism,”  and  would  prob¬ 
ably  have  been  a  restraining  and  moderating 
force  in  an  Irish  legislature.  That  he  was  genu¬ 
inely  attached  to  his  native  country  need  not 
be  doubted.  But  his  patriotism  had  little  of  a 
sentimental  quality,  and  seemed  to  spring  as 
much  from  dislike  of  England  as  from  love  of 
Ireland. 

It  may  excite  surprise  that  a  man  such  as  has 
been  sketched,  with  so  cool  a  judgment  and  so 
complete  a  self-control,  a  man  (as  his  previous 
career  had  shown)  able  to  endure  temporary 
reverses  in  the  confidence  of  ultimate  success, 
should  have  committed  the  fatal  error,  which 
blasted  his  fame  and  shortened  his  life,  of  cling¬ 
ing  to  the  headship  of  his  party  when  pru¬ 
dence  prescribed  retirement.  When  he  sought 
the  advice  of  Mr.  Cecil  Rhodes,  retirement  for 
a  time  was  the  counsel  he  received.  His 
absence  need  not  have  been  of  long  duration. 
Had  he,  after  the  sentence  of  the  Divorce 
Court  in  November  1890,  gone  abroad  for 
eight  or  ten  months,  allowing  some  one  to 
be  chosen  in  his  place  chairman  of  the  Irish 
party  for  the  session,  he  might  thereafter  have 
returned  to  the  House  of  Commons,  and  would 
doubtless,  after  a  short  lapse  of  time,  have 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  247 

naturally  recovered  the  leadership.  No  one  else 
could  have  resisted  his  claims.  Unfortunately 
the  self-reliant  pride  which  had  many  a  time 
stood  him  in  good  stead,  made  him  refuse  to 

bow  to  the  storm.  Probably  he  could  not 

understand  the  indignation  which  the  proceed¬ 
ings  in  the  divorce  case  had  awakened  in 

England,  being  morally  somewhat  callous,  and 
knowing  that  his  offence  had  been  no  secret  to 
many  persons  in  the  House  of  Commons.  He 
had  been  accustomed  to  despise  English  opinion, 
and  had  on  former  occasions  suffered  little 

for  doing  so.  He  bitterly  resented  both  Mr. 
Gladstone’s  letter  and  the  movement  to  depose 
him  which  it  roused  in  his  own  party.  Having 
often  before  found  defiant  resolution  lead  to 
success,  he  determined  again  to  rely  on  the 
maxim  which  has  beguiled  so  many  to  ruin,  just 
because  it  has  so  much  truth  in  it  —  “  De  V audace, 
encore  de  V audace,  toujours  de  I'audace'.'  The 
affront  to  his  pride  disturbed  the  balance  of  his 
mind,  and  made  him  feel  as  if  even  a  temporary 
humiliation  would  destroy  the  prestige  that  had 
been  won  by  his  haughty  self-confidence.  It 
was  soon  evident  that  he  had  overestimated  his 
power  in  Ireland,  but  when  the  schism  began 
there  were  many  besides  Lord  Salisbury  —  many 
in  Ireland  as  well  as  in  England  —  who  predicted 
triumph  for  him.  Nor  must  it  be  thought  that 
it  was  pure  selfishness  which  made  him  resolve 


248  Biographical  Studies 

rather  to  break  with  the  English  Liberals  than 
allow  the  Nationalist  bark  to  be  steered  by  any 
hands  but  his  own.  He  was  a  fatalist,  and  had 
that  confidence  in  his  star  and  his  mission  which 
is  often  characteristic  of  minds  in  which  super¬ 
stition —  for  he  was  superstitious  —  and  a  certain 
morbid  taint  may  be  discerned.  There  were 
others  who  believed  that  no  one  but  himself  could 
hold  the  Irish  party  together  and  carry  the  Irish 
cause  to  triumph.  No  wonder  that  this  belief 
should  have  filled  and  perhaps  disordered  his 
own  brain. 

The  swiftness  of  his  rise  is  a  striking  instance 
of  the  power  which  intellectual  concentration  and  a 
strenuous  will  can  exert,  for  he  had  no  adventitious 
help  from  wealth  or  family  connection  or  from 
the  reputation  of  having  suffered  for  his  country. 
Ergo  vivida  vis  animi pervicit.  When  he  entered 
Parliament  he  was  only  thirty,  with  no  experience 
of  affairs  and  no  gift  of  speech ;  but  the  quality 
that  was  in  him  of  leading  and  ruling  men,  of 
taking  the  initiative,  of  seeing  and  striking  at  the 
weak  point  of  the  enemy,  and  fearlessly  facing  the 
brunt  of  an  enemy’s  attack,  made  itself  felt  in  a 
few  months,  and  he  rose  without  effort  to  the  first 
place.  With  some  intellectual  limitations  and 
some  great  faults,  he  will  stand  high  in  the  long 
and  melancholy  series  of  Irish  leaders:  less 
lofty  than  Grattan,  less  romantic  than  Wolfe 
Tone,  less  attractive  than  O’Connell,  less  brilliant 


Charles  Stewart  Parnell  249 

than  any  of  these  three,  yet  entitled  to  be 
remembered  as  one  of  the  most  remarkable 
characters  that  his  country  has  produced  in  her 
struggle  of  many  centuries  against  the  larger 
isle. 


CARDINAL  MANNING 


Henry  Edward  Manning,  Archbishop  of  West¬ 
minster  and  Cardinal  of  the  Holy  Roman  Church, 
was  born  in  1808,  eight  years  after  Cardinal 
Newman,  and  died  in  1892.  He  was  one  of  the 
most  notable  figures  of  his  generation ;  and,  in¬ 
deed,  in  a  sense,  an  unique  figure,  for  he  con¬ 
tributed  a  new  type  to  the  already  rich  and 
various  ecclesiastical  life  of  England.  If  he 
could  scarcely  be  described  as  intellectually  a  man 
of  the  first  order,  he  held  a  considerable  place 
in  the  history  of  his  time,  having  effected  what 
greater  men  might  perhaps  have  failed  to  effect, 
for  the  race  is  not  always  to  the  swift,  and  time 
and  chance  favoured  Manning. 

He  was  the  son  of  wealthy  parents,  his  father 
a  City  of  London  merchant ;  was  educated  at 
Harrow  and  at  Oxford,  where  he  obtained  high 
classical  honours  and  a  Fellowship  at  Merton 
College ;  was  ordained  a  clergyman,  and  soon  rose 
to  be  Archdeacon  of  Chichester;  and,  having  by 
degrees  been  led  further  and  further  from  his 
original  Low  Church  position  into  the  Tractarian 
movement,  ultimately,  at  the  age  of  forty-three, 


2CO 


Cardinal  Manning  251 

went  over  to  the  Church  of  Rome.  Having 
some  time  before  lost  his  wife,  he  was  at  once 
re-ordained  a  priest,  was  appointed  Archbishop 
of  Westminster  on  Cardinal  Wiseman’s  death  in 
1865,  and  raised  to  the  Cardinalate  by  Pope 
Pius  IX.  in  1875. 

He  was  not  a  great  thinker  nor  a  man  of 
wide  learning.  His  writings  show  no  trace  of 
originality,  nor  indeed  any  conspicuous  philo¬ 
sophical  acuteness  or  logical  power.  So  far  as 
purely  intellectual  gifts  are  concerned,  he  was 
not  to  be  named  with  Cardinal  Newman  or  with 
several  other  of  the  ablest  members  of  the 
English  Tractarian  party,  such  as  were  the  two 
metaphysicians  W.  G.  Ward  and  Dalgairns,  both 
of  whom  passed  over  to  Rome,  or  such  as  was 
Dean  Church,  an  accomplished  historian,  and  a 
man  of  singularly  beautiful  character,  who  re¬ 
mained  an  Anglican  till  his  death  in  1890.  Nor, 
though  he  had  won  a  high  reputation  at  his 
University,  was  Manning  a  leading  spirit  in  the 
famous  “  Oxford  Movement.”  It  was  by  his  win¬ 
ning  manners,  his  graceful  rhetoric,  and  his  zealous 
discharge  of  clerical  duties,  rather  than  by  any 
commanding  talents  that  he  rose  to  eminence  in 
the  Church  of  England.  Neither  had  his  character 
the  same  power  either  to  attract  or  to  awe  as  that 
of  Newman.  Nobody  in  those  days  called  him 
great,  as  men  called  Newman.  Nobody  felt 
compelled  to  follow  where  he  led.  There  was 


252  Biographical  Studies 

not,  either  in  his  sermons  or  in  his  writings,  or 
in  his  bodily  presence  and  conversation,  any¬ 
thing  which  could  be  pronounced  majestic,  or 
lofty,  or  profound.  In  short,  he  was  not  in  the 
grand  style,  either  as  a  man  or  as  a  preacher,  and 
wanted  that  note  of  ethereal  purity  or  passionate 
fervour  which  marks  the  two  highest  forms  of 
religious  character. 

Intelligent,  however,  skilful,  versatile  he  was 
in  the  highest  degree ;  cultivated,  too,  with  a 
knowledge  of  all  that  a  highly  educated  man 
ought  to  know ;  dexterous  rather  than  forcible 
in  theological  controversy ;  an  admirable  rheto¬ 
rician,  handling  language  with  something  of  that 
kind  of  art  which  Roman  ecclesiastics  most 
cultivate,  and  in  their  possession  of  which  the 
leading  Tractarians  showed  their  affinity  to 
Rome,  an  exact  precision  of  phrase  and  a  subtle 
delicacy  of  suggestion.  Newman  had  it  in  the 
fullest  measure.  Dean  Church  had  it,  with  less 
brilliance  than  Newman,  but  with  no  less  grace  and 
dignity.  Manning  equalled  neither  of  these,  but 
we  catch  in  him  the  echo.  He  wrote  abundantly 
and  on  many  subjects,  always  with  cleverness 
and  with  the  air  of  one  who  claimed  to  belong 
to  the  antes  d' elite,  yet  his  style  never  attained 
the  higher  kind  of  literary  merit.  There  was  no 
imaginative  richness  about  it,  neither  were  there 
the  weight  and  penetration  that  come  from  sus¬ 
tained  and  vigorous  thinking.  Similarly,  with  a 


Cardinal  Manning  253 

certain  parade  of  references  to  history  and  to 
out-of-the-way  writers,  he  gave  scant  evidence  of 
solid  learning.  He  was  an  accomplished  disputant 
in  the  sense  of  knowing  thoroughly  the  more 
obvious  weaknesses  of  the  Protestant  (and  espe¬ 
cially  of  the  Anglican)  position,  and  of  being  able 
to  contrast  them  effectively  with  the  external 
completeness  and  formal  symmetry  of  the  Roman 
system.  But  he  never  struck  out  a  new  or 
illuminative  thought;  and  he  seldom  ventured 
to  face  —  one  could  indeed  sometimes  mark  him 
seeking  to  elude  —  a  real  difficulty. 

What,  then,  was  the  secret  of  his  great  and 
long-sustained  reputation  and  influence  ?  It  lay 
in  his  power  of  dealing  with  men.  For  the  work 
of  an  ecclesiastical  ruler  he  had  three  inestimable 
gifts  —  a  resolute  will,  captivating  manners,  and 
a  tact  equally  acute  and  vigilant,  by  which  he 
seemed  not  only  to  read  men’s  characters,  but  to 
discern  the  most  effective  means  of  playing  on 
their  motives.  To  call  him  an  intriguer  would  be 
unjust,  because  the  word,  if  it  does  not  imply  the 
pursuit  of  some  mean  or  selfish  object,  does 
generally  connote  a  resort  to  unworthy  arts ;  and 
the  Cardinal  was  neither  dishonourable  nor  selfish. 
But  he  had  the  talents  which  an  intriguer  needs, 
though  he  used  them  in  a  spirit  of  absolute 
devotion  to  the  interests  of  his  Church,  and  though 
he  was  too  much  of  a  gentleman  to  think  that 
the  interests  of  the  Church,  which  might  justify 


254  Biographical  Studies 

a  good  deal,  could  be  made  to  justify  any  and 
every  means.  In  conversation  he  had  the  art 
of  seeming  to  lay  his  mind  alongside  of  yours, 
wishful  to  know  what  you  had  to  say,  and 
prepared  to  listen  respectfully  to  it,  even  though 
you  might  be  much  younger  and  of  no  personal 
consequence.  Yet  you  sometimes  felt,  if  your 
own  power  of  observation  had  not  been  lulled  to 
sleep  by  the  winning  manner,  that  he  was  watch¬ 
ing  you,  and  watching,  in  conformity  to  a  settled 
habit,  the  effect  upon  you  of  whatever  he  said.  It 
was  hard  not  to  be  flattered  by  this  air  of  kindly 
deference,  and  natural  to  admire  the  great  man 
who  condescended  without  condescension,  even 
though  one  might  be  secretly  disappointed  at  the 
want  of  freshness  and  insight  in  his  conversation. 
Like  his  famous  contemporary,  Bishop  Samuel 
Wilberforce,  Manning  was  all  things  to  all 
men.  He  was  possessed,  no  doubt,  of  far  less 
wit  and  far  less  natural  eloquence  than  that 
brilliant  but  variable  creature.  But  he  gave 
a  more  distinct  impression  of  earnest  and  un¬ 
questioning  loyalty  to  the  cause  he  had  made  his 
own. 

In  the  government  of  his  diocese,  Manning 
showed  himself  a  finished  ruler  and  manager  of 
men,  flexible  in  his  power  of  adapting  himself  to 
any  character  or  society,  yet  inflexible  when  firm¬ 
ness  was  needed,  usually  tactful  if  not  always 
gentle  in  his  methods,  but  tenacious  in  his  pur- 


Cardinal  Manning  255 

poses,  demanding  rightfully  from  others  the 
simplicity  of  life  and  the  untiring  industry 
of  which  he  set  an  example  himself.  Over 
women  his  influence  was  still  greater  than  over 
men,  because  women  are  more  susceptible  to  the 
charm  of  presence  and  address ;  nor  could  any 
other  ecclesiastic  count  so  many  conversions 
among  ladies  of  high  station,  his  dignified  car¬ 
riage  and  ascetic  face  according  admirably  with 
his  sacerdotal  rank  and  his  life  of  strict  obser¬ 
vance.  For  some  years  it  was  his  habit  to  go  to 
Rome  early  in  Lent  and  remain  till  after  Easter. 
Promising  subjects,  who  had  doubts  as  to  their 
probabilities  of  salvation  in  the  Anglican  com¬ 
munion,  used  to  be  invited  to  dinner  to  meet 
him,  and  they  fell  in  swift  succession  before  his 
skilful  presentation  of  the  peace  and  bliss  to  be 
found  within  the  Roman  fold. 

In  his  public  appearances,  it  was  neither  the 
solid  substance  of  his  discourses  that  struck 
one,  nor  the  literary  quality  of  their  style,  but 
their  judicious  adaptation  to  the  audience,  and 
the  grace  with  which  they  were  delivered.  For 
this  reason  —  originality  being  rarer  and  therefore 
more  precious  in  the  pulpit,  where  well-worn 
themes  have  to  be  handled,  than  on  a  platform, 
where  the  topic  is  one  of  the  moment  —  his 
addresses  at  public  meetings  were  better  than  his 
sermons,  and  won  for  him  the  reputation  of  a 
speaker  whom  it  was  well  worth  while  to  secure 


256  Biographical  Studies 

at  any  social  or  philanthropic  gathering.  At  the 
Vatican  (Ecumenical  Council  of  1870  it  was  less 
by  his  speeches  than  by  his  work  in  private  among 
the  assembled  prelates  that  he  served  the  In- 
fallibilist  cause.  Himself  devoted,  and,  no  doubt, 
honestly  devoted,  to  Ultramontane  principles,  he 
did  not  hesitate  to  do  violence  to  history  and  join 
in  destroying  what  freedom  the  Church  at  large 
had  retained,  in  order  to  exalt  the  Chair  of  Peter 
to  a  position  unheard  of  even  at  Trent,  not  to  say 
in  the  Middle  Ages.  His  activity,  his  assiduity, 
and  his  tireless  powers  of  persuasion  contrib¬ 
uted  largely  to  the  satisfaction  at  that  Council 
of  the  wishes  of  Pius  IX.,  who  presently  rewarded 
him  with  the  Cardinalate.  But  the  opponents  of 
the  new  dogma,  who  were  as  superior  in  learning 
to  the  Infallibilists  as  they  proved  inferior  in 
numbers,  carried  back  with  them  to  Germany  and 
North  America  an  undying  distrust  of  the  astute 
Englishman  who  had  shown  more  than  a  con¬ 
vert’s  proverbial  eagerness  for  rushing  to  extremes 
and  forcing  others  to  follow.  I  remember  to 
have  met  some  of  the  anti-Infallibilist  prelates 
returning  to  America  in  the  autumn  of  1870; 
and  in  our  many  talks  on  shipboard  they  spoke  of 
the  Archbishop  in  terms  no  more  measured  than 
Nestorius  may  have  used  of  St.  Cyril  after  the 
Council  of  Ephesus. 

But  Manning’s  powers  shone  forth  most  fully 
in  the  course  he  gave  to  his  policy  as  Arch- 


Cardinal  Manning  257 

bishop  of  Westminster  and  head  of  the  Roman 
hierarchy  in  Britain.  He  had  two  difficulties 
to  confront.  One  was  the  suspicion  of  the 
old  English  Roman  Catholic  families,  who  dis¬ 
trusted  him  as  a  recent  recruit  from  Protestantism, 
a  man  brought  up  in  ideas  unfamiliar  to  their 
conservative  minds.  The  other  was  the  aversion 
of  the  ruling  classes  in  England,  and  indeed  of 
Englishmen  generally,  to  the  pretensions  of  Rome, 
an  aversion  which,  among  the  Tories,  sprang  from 
deep-seated  historical  associations,  and  among 
the  Whigs  drew  further  strength  from  dislike  to 
the  reactionary  tendencies  of  the  Popedom  on  the 
European  continent,  and  especially  its  resistance 
to  the  freedom  and  unity  of  Italy.  In  1850 
the  creation  by  the  Pope  of  a  Roman  Catholic 
hierarchy  in  England,  followed  by  Cardinal 
Wiseman’s  letter  dated  from  the  Flaminian  Gate, 
had  evoked  a  burst  of  anti-papal  feeling  which 
never  quite  subsided  during  Wiseman’s  lifetime. 
Both  these  enmities  Manning  overcame.  The 
old  Catholic  families  rallied  to  a  prelate  who 
supported  with  dignity  and  vigour  the  pretensions 
of  their  church ;  while  the  suspicions  of  Protes¬ 
tants  were  largely,  if  not  universally,  allayed 
when  they  noted  the  attitude  of  a  patriotic 
Englishman,  zealous  for  the  greatness  of  his 
country,  which  the  Archbishop  assumed,  as  well 
as  the  heartiness  with  which  he  threw  himself 
into  moral  and  philanthropic  causes.  Loyalty  to 


258  Biographical  Studies 

Rome  never  betrayed  him  into  any  apparent 
disloyalty  to  England.  Too  prudent  to  avow 
sympathy  with  either  political  party,  he  seemed 
less  opposed  to  Liberalism  than  his  predecessor 
had  been  or  than  most  of  the  English  Catholics 
were.  While,  of  course,  at  issue  with  the  Liberal 
party  upon  educational  questions,  he  was  believed 
to  lean  to  Home  Rule,  and  maintained  good  rela¬ 
tions  with  the  Irish  leaders.  He  joined  those 
who  worked  for  the  better  protection  of  children 
and  the  repression  of  vice,  advocated  total  absti¬ 
nence  by  precept  and  example,  and  did  much  to 
promote  it  among  the  poorer  Roman  Catholic 
population.  Discerning  the  growing  magnitude 
of  what  are  called  labour  questions,  he  did  not 
recoil  from  proposals  to  limit  by  legislation  the 
hours  of  toil,  and  gladly  exerted  himself  to  settle 
differences  between  employers  and  workmen, 
showing  his  own  sympathy  with  the  needs  and 
hardships  of  the  latter.  Thus  he  won  a  popu¬ 
larity  with  the  London  masses  greater  than  any 
prelate  of  the  Established  Church  had  enjoyed, 
while  the  middle  and  upper  classes  noted  with 
pleasure  that,  however  Ultramontane  in  his 
theology,  he  always  spoke  and  wrote  as  an 
Englishman  upon  non-theological  subjects. 

In  this  there  was  no  playing  of  a  part,  for  he 
sincerely  cared  about  temperance,  the  welfare  of 
children,  the  advancement  of  the  labouring  class, 
and  the  greatness  of  England.  But  there  was 


Cardinal  Manning  259 

also  a  sage  perception  of  the  incidental  service 
which  his  attitude  in  these  matters  could  render 
to  his  church ;  and  he  relished  opportunities  of 
proving  that  a  Catholic  prelate  could  be  not  only 
a  philanthropist  but  also  a  patriot.  He  saw  the 
value  of  the  attitude,  though  he  used  it  honestly, 
and  if  he  was  not  artful,  he  was  full  of  art. 
Truth,  for  its  own  sake,  he  neither  loved  nor 
sought,  but,  having  once  adopted  certain  conclu¬ 
sions,  doctrinal  and  practical,  subordinated  every¬ 
thing  else  to  them.  Power  he  loved,  yet  not  wholly 
for  the  pleasure  which  he  found  in  exerting  it,  but 
also  because  he  knew  that  he  was  fit  to  use  it, 
and  could  use  it,  to  promote  the  aims  he  cherished. 
To  his  church  he  was  devoted  heart  and  soul ;  nor 
could  any  one  have  better  served  it  so  far  as 
England  was  concerned.  No  one  in  our  time, 
hardly  even  Cardinal  Newman,  has  done  so  much 
to  sap  and  remove  the  old  Protestant  fears  and 
jealousies  of  Rome,  fears  and  jealousies  which 
had  descended  from  days  when  they  were  less 
unreasonable  than  the  liberality  or  indifference 
of  our  times  will  allow.  Truly  the  Roman 
Church  is  a  wonderful  institution,  fertile  beyond 
any  other,  since  in  each  succeeding  age  she  has 
given  birth  to  new  types  of  force  suited  to  the 
conditions  she  has  to  deal  with.  In  Manning  she 
developed  a  figure  full  of  a  kind  of  charm  and 
strength  which  could  hardly  have  found  due 
scope  within  a  Protestant  body:  a  man  who  never 


260  Biographical  Studies 

obtruded  a  claim,  yet  never  yielded  one;  who 
was  the  loyal  servant  of  a  spiritual  despotism, 
yet  apparently  in  sympathy  with  democratic  ideas 
and  movements ;  equally  welcome  among  the 
poorest  Irish  of  his  diocese  and  at  the  gatherings 
of  the  great;  ready  to  join  in  every  good  work 
with  those  most  opposed  to  his  own  doctrines, 
yet  standing  detached  as  the  austere  and  unbend¬ 
ing  representative  of  a  world-embracing  power. 

Since  these  pages  were  written  there  has  ap¬ 
peared  a  Life  of  Cardinal  Manning  which,  for  the 
variety  and  interest  of  its  contents,  and  for  the 
flood  of  light  which  it  throws  upon  its  subject, 
deserves  to  rank  among  the  best  biographies  in 
the  English  language.  It  reveals  the  inner  life 
of  Manning,  his  high  motives  and  his  tortuous 
methods,  his  piety  and  his  aspirations,  his  occa¬ 
sional  lapses  from  sincerity  and  rectitude,  with  a 
fulness  to  which  one  can  scarcely  find  a  parallel. 
As  was  remarked  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  who  was  so 
keenly  interested  in  the  book  that  for  months  he 
could  talk  of  little  else,  it  leaves  nothing  for  the 
Day  of  Judgment. 

It  would  be  idle  to  deny  that  Manning’s 
reputation  did  in  some  measure  suffer.  Yet  it 
must  in  fairness  be  remembered  that  an  ordeal 
such  as  that  to  which  he  has  been  thus  subjected 
is  seldom  applied,  and  might,  if  similarly  applied, 
have  lowered  many  another  reputation.  Cicero 


Cardinal  Manning  261 

has  suffered  in  like  manner.  We  should  have 
thought  more  highly  of  him,  though  I  do  not 
know  that  we  should  have  liked  him  better,  if  his 
letters  had  not  survived  to  reveal  weaknesses 
which  other  men,  or  their  biographers,  were  dis¬ 
creet  enough  to  conceal. 

I  have  not  attempted  to  rewrite  the  preceding 
pages  in  the  light  of  Mr.  Purcell’s  biography,  for 
to  do  so  would  have  extended  them  beyond  the 
limits  of  a  sketch.  I  have,  moreover,  found  that 
the  disclosures  contained  in  the  biography  do  not 
oblige  me  to  darken  the  colours  of  the  sketch 
itself.  Taken  all  in  all,  these  intimate  records  of 
Manning’s  life  tend  to  confirm  the  view  that,  along 
with  his  love  of  power  and  pre-eminence,  along  with 
his  carelessness  about  historic  truth,  along  with 
the  questionable  methods  he  sometimes  allowed 
himself  to  use,  there  lay  deep  in  his  heart  a  gen¬ 
uine  and  unfailing  sympathy  with  many  good 
causes,  such  as  the  cause  of  temperance,  and  a 
real  tenderness  for  the  poor  and  for  children.  If 
he  was  far  removed  from  a  saint,  still  less  was  he 
the  mere  worldly  ecclesiastic,  crafty  and  ambitious, 
who  has  in  all  ages  been  a  familiar  and  unlovely 
type  of  character. 


EDWARD  AUGUSTUS  FREEMAN1 


Edward  Freeman  was  born  at  Harborne  in 
South  Staffordshire  on  2nd  August  1823,  and 
died  at  Alicante  on  16th  March  1892,  in  the 
course  of  an  archaeological  and  historical  journey 
to  the  east  and  south  of  Spain,  whither  he  had 
gone  to  see  the  sites  of  the  early  Carthaginian 
settlements.  His  life  was  comparatively  un¬ 
eventful,  as  that  of  learned  men  in  our  time 
usually  is.  He  was  educated  at  home  and  at  a 
private  school  till  he  went  to  Oxford  at  the  age 
of  eighteen.  There  he  was  elected  a  scholar  of 
Trinity  College  in  1841,  took  his  degree  (second 
class  in  literae  humaniores )  in  1845,  and  was 
elected  a  fellow  of  Trinity  shortly  afterwards. 
Marrying  in  1847,  he  lost  his  fellowship,  and 
settled  in  1848  in  Gloucestershire,  and  at  a  later 
time  went  to  live  in  Monmouthshire,  whence 
he  migrated  in  i860  to  Somerleaze,  a  pretty 
spot  about  a  mile  and  a  half  to  the  north- 

1  An  excellent  Life  of  Freeman  has  been  written  by  his  friend  Mr. 
W.  R.  W.  Stephens,  afterwards  Dean  of  Winchester,  whose  death  while 
these  pages  were  passing  through  the  press  has  caused  the  deepest  regret 
to  all  who  had  the  opportunity  of  knowing  his  literary  gifts  and  his 
lovable  character. 


262 


Edward  Freeman  263 

west  of  Wells  in  Somerset.  Here  he  lived 
till  1884,  when  he  was  appointed  (on  the  rec¬ 
ommendation  of  Mr.  Gladstone)  to  the  Regius 
Professorship  of  Modern  History  at  Oxford. 
Thenceforth  he  spent  the  winter  and  spring  in 
the  University,  returning  for  the  long  vacation 
to  Somerleaze,  a  place  he  dearly  loved,  not  only 
in  respect  of  the  charm  of  the  surrounding 
scenery,  but  from  its  proximity  to  the  beautiful 
churches  of  Wells  and  to  many  places  of  histori¬ 
cal  interest.  For  the  greater  part  of  his  manhood 
his  surroundings  were  those  of  a  country  gentle¬ 
man,  nor  did  he  ever  reconcile  himself  to  town 
life,  for  he  loved  the  open  sky,  the  fields  and  hills, 
and  all  wild  creatures,  though  he  detested  what 
are  called  field  sports,  knew  nothing  of  natural 
history,  and  had  neither  taste  nor  talent  for 
farming.  As  he  began  life  with  an  income  suf¬ 
ficient  to  make  a  gainful  profession  unnecessary, 
he  did  not  prepare  himself  for  any,  but  gave  free 
scope  from  the  first  to  his  taste  for  study  and 
research.  Thus  the  record  of  his  life  is,  with  the 
exception  of  one  or  two  incursions  into  the  field 
of  practical  politics,  a  record  of  his  historical  work 
and  of  the  journeys  he  undertook  in  connection 
with  it. 

History  was  the  joy  as  well  as  the  labour  of 
his  life.  But  the  conception  he  took  of  it  was 
peculiar  enough  to  deserve  some  remark.  The 
keynote  of  his  character  was  the  extraordinary 


264  Biographical  Studies 

warmth  of  his  interest  in  the  persons,  things,  and 
places  which  he  cared  for,  and  the  scarcely  less 
conspicuous  indifference  to  matters  which  lay 
outside  the  well-defined  boundary  line  of  his  sym¬ 
pathies.  If  any  branch  of  inquiry  seemed  to  him 
directly  connected  with  history,  he  threw  himself 
heartily  into  it,  and  drew  from  it  all  it  could  be 
made  to  yield  for  his  purpose.  About  other  sub¬ 
jects  he  would  neither  read  nor  talk,  no  matter 
how  completely  they  might  for  the  time  be  filling 
the  minds  of  others.  While  an  undergraduate, 
and  influenced,  like  most  of  the  abler  men  among 
his  Oxford  contemporaries,  by  the  Tractarian 
opinions  and  sentiments  then  in  their  full  force 
and  freshness,1  he  became  interested  in  church 
architecture,  discerned  the  value  which  architec¬ 
ture  has  as  a  handmaid  to  historical  research,  set 
to  work  to  study  mediaeval  buildings,  and  soon 
acquired  a  wonderfully  full  and  exact  knowledge 
of  the  most  remarkable  churches  and  castles  all 
over  England.  He  taught  himself  to  sketch,  not 
artistically,  but  sufficiently  well  to  record  charac¬ 
teristic  points,  and  by  the  end  of  his  life  he  had 


1  The  scholars  of  Trinity  were  then  (1843)  a'l  High  Churchmen,  and 
never  dined  in  hall  on  Fridays.  Fourteen  years  later  there  was  not  a  single 
High  Churchman  among  them.  Ten  or  fifteen  years  afterwards  Anglo- 
Catholic  sentiment  was  again  strong.  Freeman  said  that  his  revulsion 
against  Tractarianism  began  from  a  conversation  with  one  of  his  fellow- 
scholars,  who  had  remarked  that  it  was  a  pity  there  had  been  a  flaw  in  the 
consecration  of  some  Swedish  bishops  in  the  sixteenth  century,  for  this 
had  imperilled  the  salvation  of  all  Swedes  since  that  time.  He  was 
startled,  and  began  to  reconsider  his  position. 


Edward  Freeman  265 

accumulated  a  collection  of  hundreds  of  drawings 
made  by  himself  of  notable  buildings  in  France, 
Germany,  Italy,  and  Dalmatia,  as  well  as  in  the 
British  Isles.  Architecture  was  always  thence¬ 
forward  to  him  the  prime  external  record  and 
interpreter  of  history.  But  it  was  the  only  art  in 
which  he  took  the  slightest  interest.  He  cared 
nothing  for  pictures  or  statuary;  was  believed 
to  have  once  only,  when  his  friend  J.  R.  Green 
dragged  him  thither,  visited  a  picture-gallery  in 
the  course  of  his  numerous  journeys ;  and  did  not 
seem  to  perceive  the  significance  which  paintings 
have  as  revealing  the  thoughts  and  social  con¬ 
dition  of  the  time  which  produced  them.  Another 
branch  of  inquiry  cognate  to  history  which  he 
prized  was  comparative  philology.  With  no 
great  turn  for  the  refinements  of  classical 
scholarship,  and  indeed  with  some  contempt  for 
the  practice  of  Latin  and  Greek  verse-making 
which  used  to  absorb  much  of  the  time  and 
labour  of  undergraduates  and  their  tutors  at 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  he  was  extremely  fond 
of  tracing  words  through  different  languages  so 
as  to  establish  the  relations  of  the  peoples  who 
spoke  them,  and,  indeed,  used  to  argue  that  all 
teaching  of  languages  ought  to  begin  with 
Grimm’s  law,  and  to  base  his  advocacy  of  the 
retention  of  Greek  as  a  sine  qua  non  for  an  Arts 
degree  in  the  University  on  the  importance  of 
that  law.  But  with  this  love  for  philology  as  an 


266  Biographical  Studies 

instrument  in  the  historian’s  hands,  he  took  little 
pleasure  in  languages  simply  as  languages  —  that 
is  to  say,  he  did  not  care  to  master,  and  was  not 
apt  at  mastering,  the  grammar  and  idioms  of  a 
tongue.  French  was  the  only  foreign  language 
he  spoke  with  any  approach  to  ease,  though  he 
could  read  freely  German,  Italian,  and  modern 
Greek,  and  on  his  tour  in  Greece  made  some 
vigorous  speeches  to  the  people  in  their  own 
tongue.  He  had  learnt  to  pronounce  Greek  in 
the  modern  fashion,  which  few  Englishmen  can 
do ;  but  how  much  of  his  classically  phrased  dis¬ 
courses  did  the  crowds  that  acclaimed  the  dis¬ 
tinguished  Philhellene  understand  ?  So  too  he 
was  a  keen  and  well-trained  archaeologist,  but 
only  because  archaeology  was  to  him  a  priceless 
adjunct  —  one  might  almost  say  the  most  trust¬ 
worthy  source  —  of  the  study  of  early  history. 
As  evidence  of  his  accomplishments  as  an  anti¬ 
quary  I  cannot  do  better  than  quote  the  words 
of  a  master  of  that  subject,  who  was  also  one  of 
his  oldest  friends.  Mr.  George  T.  Clark  says  :  — 


He  was  an  accurate  observer,  not  only  of  the  broad 
features  of  a  country  but  of  its  ancient  roads  and  earthworks, 
its  prehistoric  monuments,  and  its  earlier  and  especially  its 
ecclesiastical  buildings.  No  man  was  better  versed  in  the 
distinctive  styles  of  Christian  architecture,  or  had  a  better 
general  knowledge  of  the  earthworks  from  the  study  of  which 
he  might  hope  to  correct  or  corroborate  any  written  records, 
and  by  the  aid  of  which  he  often  infused  life  and  reality  into 
otherwise  obscure  narrations.  .  .  .  He  visited  every  spot  upon 


Edward  Freeman 


267 

which  the  Conqueror  is  recorded  to  have  set  his  foot,  com¬ 
pared  many  of  the  strongholds  of  his  followers  with  those 
they  left  behind  them  in  Normandy,  and  studied  the  evidence 
of  Domesday  for  their  character  and  possessions.  When 
writing  upon  Rufus  he  spent  some  time  in  examining  the 
afforested  district  of  the  New  Forest,  and  sought  for  traces  of 
the  villages  and  churches  said  to  have  been  depopulated  or 
destroyed.  And  for  us  archaeologists  he  did  more  than  this. 
When  he  attended  a  provincial  congress  and  had  listened  to 
the  description  of  some  local  antiquity,  some  mound,  or 
divisional  earthbank,  or  semi-Saxon  church,  he  at  once  strove 
to  show  the  general  evidence  to  be  deduced  from  them,  and 
how  it  bore  upon  the  boundaries  or  formation  of  some  Celtic 
or  Saxon  province  or  diocese,  if  not  upon  the  general  history 
of  the  kingdom  itself.  .  .  .  He  thus  did  much  to  elevate  the 
pursuits  of  the  archaeologist,  and  to  show  the  relation  they 
bore  to  the  far  superior  labours  of  the  historian. 

Freeman  was  always  at  his  best  when  in  the  field.  It  was 
then  that  the  full  force  of  his  personality  came  into  play  :  his 
sturdy  upright  figure,  sharp-cut  features,  flowing  beard,  well- 
modulated  voice,  clear  enunciation,  and  fluent  and  incisive 
speech.  None  who  have  heard  him  hold  forth  from  the  steps 
of  some  churchyard  cross,  or  from  the  top  stone  of  some  half- 
demolished  cromlech,  can  ever  cease  to  have  a  vivid  recollec¬ 
tion  of  both  the  orator  and  his  theme. 

Freeman  took  endless  pains  to  master  the  to¬ 
pography  of  any  place  he  had  to  deal  with.  When 
at  work  in  his  later  years  on  Sicilian  history  he 
visited,  and  he  has  minutely  described,  the  site  of 
nearly  every  spot  in  that  island  where  a  battle 
or  a  siege  took  place  in  ancient  times,  so  that 
his  volumes  have  become  an  elaborate  historical 
guide-book  for  the  student  or  tourist. 

But  while  he  thus  delighted  in  whatever  bore 
upon  history  as  he  conceived  it,  his  conception 


268  Biographical  Studies 

was  one  which  belonged  to  the  eighteenth  century 
rather  than  to  our  own  time.  It  was  to  him  not 
only  primarily  but  almost  exclusively  a  record 
of  political  events  —  that  is  to  say,  of  events  in 
the  sphere  of  war,  diplomacy,  and  government. 
He  expressed  this  view  with  concise  vigour  in 
the  well-known  dictum,  “  History  is  past  politics, 
and  politics  is  present  history  ” ;  and  though  his 
friends  remonstrated  with  him  against  this  view 
as  far  too  narrow,  excluding  from  the  sphere 
of  history  many  of  its  deepest  sources  of  in¬ 
terest,  he  would  never  give  way.  That  his¬ 
torians  should  care  as  much  (or  more)  for  the 
religious  or  philosophical  opinions  of  an  age,  or 
for  its  ethical  and  social  phenomena,  or  for  the 
study  of  its  economic  conditions,  as  for  forms 
of  government  or  battles  and  sieges,  seemed  to 
him  strange.  He  did  not  argue  against  the 
friends  who  differed  from  him,  for  he  was  ready 
to  believe  that  there  must  be  something  true  and 
valuable  in  the  views  of  a  man  whom  he  re¬ 
spected  ;  but  he  could  not  be  induced  to  devote 
his  own  labours  to  the  elucidation  of  these 
matters.  He  would  say  to  Green,  “You  may 
bring  in  all  that  social  and  religious  kind  of 
thing,  Johnny,  but  I  can’t.”  So  when  he  went 
to  deliver  lectures  in  the  United  States,  he  de¬ 
lighted  in  making  new  acquaintances  there,  and 
was  interested  in  the  Federal  system  and  in  all 
institutions  which  he  could  trace  to  their  English 


Edward  Freeman  269 

originals,  but  did  not  care  to  see  anything  or 
hear  anything  about  the  economic  development 
or  social  life  of  the  country. 

The  same  predominant  liking  for  the  political 
element  in  history  made  him  indifferent  to  many 
kinds  of  literature,.  It  may  indeed  be  said  that 
literature,  simply  as  literature,  did  not  attract 
him.  In  his  later  years,  at  any  rate,  he  seldom 
read  a  book  except  for  the  sake  of  the  political  or 
historical  information  it  contained.  Among  the 
writers  whom  he  most  disliked  were  Plato,  Car¬ 
lyle,  and  Ruskin,  in  no  one  of  whom  could  he  see 
any  merit.  Plato,  he  said,  was  the  only  author 
he  had  ever  thrown  to  the  other  end  of  the  room. 
Neither,  although  very  fond  of  the  Greek  and 
Roman  classics  generally,  did  he  seem  to  enjoy 
any  of  the  Greek  poets  except  Homer  and  Pindar 
and,  to  some  extent,  Aristophanes.  His  liking 
for  Pindar  used  to  surprise  us,  because  Pindar  is 
peculiarly  the  favourite  poet  of  poetical  minds ; 
and  I  suspect  it  was  not  so  much  the  splendour  of 
Pindar’s  style  and  the  wealth  of  his  imagination 
that  Freeman  enjoyed,  as  rather  the  profusion  of 
historical  and,  mythological  references.  He  was 
impatient  with  the  Greek  tragedians,  and  still 
more  impatient  with  Virgil,  because  (as  he  said) 
“  Virgil  cannot  or  will  not  say  a  thing  simply.” 
Among  English  poets  his  preference  was  for 
the  old  heroic  ballads,  such  as  the  songs  of 
Brunanburh  and  Maldon,  and,  among  recent 


270  Biographical  Studies 

writers,  for  Macaulay’s  Lays.  The  first  thing 
he  ever  published  (1850)  was  a  volume  of  verse, 
consisting  mainly  of  ballads,  some  of  them  very 
spirited,  on  events  in  Greek  and  Moorish  history. 
It  may  be  doubted  if  he  remembered  a  line  of 
Shelley,  Keats,  Wordsworth,  or  Tennyson.  He 
blamed  Walter  Scott  for  misrepresenting  history 
in  Ivanhoe ,  but  constantly  read  the  rest  of  his 
stories,  taking  special  pleasure  in  Peveril  of  the 
Peak.  He  bestowed  warm  praise  upon  Romola, 
on  one  occasion  reading  it  through  twice  in  a 
single  journey.  Mrs.  Gaskell’s  Mary  Barton , 
Marryatt’s  Peter  Simple ,  Trollope’s  The  Warden 
and  Barchester  Towers ,  were  amongst  his 
favourites.  Among  the  moderns,  Macaulay  was 
his  favourite  prose  author,  and  he  was  wont  to 
say  that  from  Macaulay  he  had  learned  never 
to  be  afraid  of  using  the  same  word  to  describe 
the  same  thing,  and  that  no  one  was  a  better 
model  to  follow  in  the  choice  of  pure  English. 
Limitations  of  taste  are  not  uncommon  among 
eminent  men.  What  was  uncommon  in  Free¬ 
man  was  the  perfect  frankness  with  which  he 
avowed  his  aversions,  and  the  absence  of  any 
pretence  of  caring  for  things  which  he  did  not 
really  care  for.  He  was  in  this,  as  in  all  other 
matters,  a  singularly  simple  and  truthful  man, 
never  seeking  to  appear  different  from  what  he 
was,  and  finding  it  hard  to  understand  why  other 
people  should  not  be  equally  simple  and  direct. 


Edward  Freeman 


271 

This  directness  made  him  express  himself  with 
an  absence  of  reserve  which  often  gave  offence. 
Positive  and  definite,  with  a  strong  broad  logic 
which  every  one  could  follow,  he  was  a  for¬ 
midable  controversialist  even  on  subjects  outside 
history.  A  good  specimen  of  his  powers  was 
given  in  the  argument  against  the  cruelty  of  field 
sports  which  he  carried  on  against  Anthony 
Trollope.  His  cause  was  not  a  popular  one  in 
England,  but  he  stated  it  so  well  as  to  carry  off 
the  honours  of  the  fray.1 

The  restriction  of  his  interest  to  a  few  topics  — 
wide  ones,  to  be  sure  —  seemed  to  increase  the 
intensity  of  his  devotion  to  those  few;  and  thus 
even  the  two  chief  practical  interests  he  had  in 
life  connected  themselves  with  his  conception  of 

1  Having  had  about  the  same  time  a  brush  with  George  Anthony 
Denison  (Archdeacon  of  Taunton)  and  a  less  friendly  passage  of  arms  with 
James  Anthony  Froude,  he  wrote  to  me  in  1870:  “I  am  greater  than 
Cicero,  who  was  smiter  of  one  Antonius.  I  venture  to  think  that  I  have 
whopped  the  whole  Gens  Antonia  —  first  Anthony  pure  and  simple,  which 
is  Trollope;  secondly,  James  Anthony,  whom  I  believe  myself  to  have 
smitten,  as  Cnut  did  Eadric  swifte  rihtlice,  in  the  matter  of  St.  Hugh; 
thirdly,  George  Anthony,  with  whom  I  fought  again  last  Tuesday,  carrying 
at  our  Education  Board  a  resolution  in  favour  of  Forster’s  bill.”  Trollope 
and  he  became  warm  friends.  Froude  he  heartily  disliked,  not,  I  think, 
on  any  personal  grounds,  but  because  he  thought  Froude  indifferent  to 
truth,  and  was  incensed  by  the  defence  of  Henry  VIII. ’s  crimes. 

It  may  be  added  that  Freeman,  much  as  he  detested  Henry  VIII.,  used 
to  observe  that  Henry  had  a  sort  of  legal  conscience,  because  he  always 
wished  his  murders  to  be  done  by  Act  of  Parliament,  and  that  the  earlier 
and  better  part  of  Henry’s  reign  ought  not  to  be  forgotten.  He  was  fond  of 
quoting  the  euphemism  with  which  an  old  Oxford  professor  of  ecclesiastical 
history  concluded  his  account  of  the  sovereign  whom,  in  respect  of  his  rela¬ 
tion  to  the  Church  of  England,  it  seemed  proper  to  handle  gently:  “The 
later  years  of  this  great  monarch  were  clouded  by  domestic  troubles.” 


272  Biographical  Studies 

history.  One  was  the  discharge  of  his  duties  as 
a  magistrate  in  the  local  government  of  his  county. 
While  he  lived  at  Somerleaze  he  rarely  missed 
Quarter  Sessions,  speaking  seldom,  but  valuing 
the  opportunity  of  taking  part  in  the  rule  of  the 
shire.  The  other  was  the  politics  of  the  time, 
foreign  politics  even  more  than  domestic.  He 
was  from  an  early  age  a  strong  Liberal,  throw¬ 
ing  himself  into  every  question  which  bore  on 
the  Constitution,  either  in  state  or  in  church,  for 
(as  has  been  said)  topics  of  the  social  or  economic 
kind  lay  rather  out  of  his  sphere.  When  Mr. 
Gladstone  launched  his  Irish  Home  Rule  scheme 
in  1886,  Freeman  espoused  it  warmly,  and  praised 
it  for  the  very  point  which  drew  most  censure 
even  from  Liberals,  the  removal  of  the  Irish 
members  from  Parliament.  He  was  intensely 
English  and  Teutonic,  and  wished  the  Gael  to 
be  left  to  settle,  or  fight  over,  their  own  affairs  in 
their  own  island,  as  they  had  done  eight  centuries 
ago.  Even  the  idea  of  separating  Ireland  alto¬ 
gether  from  the  English  Crown  would  not  have 
alarmed  him,  for  he  did  not  thank  Strongbow 
and  Henry  II.  for  having  invaded  it;  while,  on 
the  other  hand,  the  plan  of  turning  the  United 
Kingdom  into  a  federation,  giving  to  England, 
Scotland,  Ireland,  and  Wales  each  a  local  parlia¬ 
ment  of  its  own,  with  an  imperial  parliament 
for  common  concerns,  shocked  all  his  historical 
instincts. 


Edward  Freeman  273 

In  1859  he  was  on  the  point  of  coming 
forward  as  a  parliamentary  candidate  for  the 
borough  of  Newport  in  Monmouthshire,  and 
again  at  the  election  of  1868  he  actually  did 
stand  for  one  of  the  divisions  of  Somerset,  and 
showed  in  his  platform  speeches  a  remarkable  gift 
of  eloquence,  and  occasionally,  also,  of  humour, 
coupled  with  a  want  of  those  minor  arts  which 
usually  contribute  more  than  eloquence  does  to 
success  in  electioneering.  I  went  round  with 
him,  along  with  his  and  my  friend  Mr.  Albert 
Dicey,  and  few  are  the  candidates  who  get  so 
much  pleasure  out  of  a  contest  as  Freeman  did. 
He  was  a  strenuous  advocate  of  disestablishment 
in  Ireland,  the  question  chiefly  at  issue  in  the 
election  of  1868,  because  he  thought  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  was  of  right,  and  ought  by  law 
to  be,  the  national  Church  there ;  but  no  less 
decidedly  opposed  to  disestablishment  in  England, 
where  it  would  have  pained  him  to  see  the  up¬ 
rooting  of  a  system  entwined  with  the  ideas  and 
events  of  the  Middle  Ages.  In  his  later  years 
he  told  me  that  if  the  Liberal  party  took  up  the 
policy  of  disestablishment  in  Wales,  he  did  not 
know  whether  he  could  adhere  to  them,  much  as 
he  desired  to  do  so. 

Similarly  he  disliked  all  schemes  for  drawing 
the  colonies  into  closer  relations  with  the  United 
Kingdom,  and  even  seemed  to  wish  that  they 
should  sever  themselves  from  it,  as  the  United 


274  Biographical  Studies 

States  had  done.  This  view  sprang  partly  from 
his  feeling  that  they  were  very  recent  acquisi¬ 
tions,  with  which  the  old  historic  England  had 
nothing  to  do,  partly  also  from  the  impression  made 
on  him  by  the  analogy  of  the  Greek  colonies. 
He  held  that  the  precedent  of  the  Greek 
settlements  showed  the  true  and  proper  relation 
between  a  “  metropolis,”  or  mother-city,  and  her 
colonies  to  be  one  not  of  political  dependence  or 
interdependence,  but  of  cordial  friendliness  and  a 
disposition  to  render  help,  nothing  more.  These 
instances  are  worth  citing  because  they  illustrate 
a  remarkable  difference  between  his  way  of  look¬ 
ing  historically  at  institutions  and  Macaulay’s 
way.  A  friend  of  his  (the  late  Mr.  S.  R.  Gardiner), 
like  Freeman  a  distinguished  historian,  and  like 
him  a  strong  Home  Ruler,  wrote  to  me  upon  this 
point  as  follows:  — 

Freeman  and  Macaulay  are  alike  in  the  high  value  they 
set  upon  parliamentary  institutions.  On  the  other  hand,  when 
Macaulay  wants  to  make  you  understand  a  thing,  he  compares 
it  with  that  which  existed  in  his  own  day.  The  standard 
of  the  present  is  always  with  him.  Freeman  traces  it  to 
its  origin,  and  testifies  to  its  growth.  The  strength  of  this 
mode  of  proceeding  in  an  historian  is  obvious.  Its  weak¬ 
ness  is  that  it  does  not  help  him  to  appreciate  statesmanship 
looking  forward  and  trying  to  find  a  solution  of  difficult 
problems.  Freeman’s  attitude  is  that  of  the  people  who 
cried  out  for  the  good  laws  of  King  Edward,  trying  to  revive 
the  past. 

Freeman  was  apt  to  go  beyond  his  own 
dictum  about  history  and  politics,  for  he  some- 


Edward  Freeman  275 

times  made  history  present  politics  as  well  as 
past. 

By  far  the  strongest  political  interest —  indeed 
it  rose  to  a  passion  —  of  his  later  years  was  his 
hatred  of  the  Turk.  In  it  his  historical  and 
religious  sentiment,  for  there  was  a  good  deal 
of  the  Crusader  about  him,  was  blended  with 
his  abhorrence  of  despotism  and  cruelty.  Ever 
since  the  beginning  of  the  Crimean  war  he  had 
been  opposed  to  the  traditional  English  policy  of 
supporting  the  Sultan.  Ever  since  he  had  thought 
about  foreign  politics  at  all  he  had  sympathised 
with  the  Christians  of  the  East.  So  when  Lord 
Beaconsfield  seemed  on  the  point  of  carrying  the 
country  into  a  war  with  Russia  in  defence  of  the 
Turks,  no  voice  rose  louder  or  bolder  than  his  in 
denouncing  the  policy  then  popular  with  the 
upper  classes  in  England.  On  this  occasion  he 
gave  substantial  proof  of  his  earnestness  by 
breaking  off  his  connection  with  the  Sahirday 
Review  because  it  had  espoused  the  Turkish  cause. 
This  cost  him  ^600  a  year  ($3000),  a  sum 
he  could  ill  spare,  and  took  from  him  what  had 
been  the  joy  of  his  heart,  opportunities  of  deliver¬ 
ing  himself  upon  all  sorts  of  current  questions. 
But  his  sense  of  duty  forbade  him  to  write  for  a 
journal  which  was  supporting  a  misguided  policy 
and  a  minister  whom  he  thought  unscrupulous. 

His  habit  of  speaking  out  his  whole  mind 
with  little  regard  to  the  effect  his  words  might 


276  Biographical  Studies 

produce,  or  to  the  way  in  which  they  might 
be  twisted,  sometimes  landed  him  in  difficulties. 
One  utterance  raised  an  outcry  at  the  time,  be¬ 
cause  it  was  made  at  a  conference  held  in  London 
in  December  1876  to  oppose  Lord  Beaconsfield’s 
Eastern  policy.  The  Duke  of  Westminster  and 
Lord  Shaftesbury  presided  at  the  forenoon  and 
afternoon  sessions,  and  the  meeting,  which  told 
powerfully  on  the  country,  was  wound  up  by  Mr. 
Gladstone.  Freeman’s  speech,  only  ten  minutes 
long,  but  an  oratorical  success  at  the  moment,  con¬ 
tained  the  words,  “  Perish  the  interests  of  England, 
perish  our  dominion  in  India,  rather  than  that  we 
should  strike  one  blow  or  speak  one  word  on  be¬ 
half  of  the  wrong  against  the  right.”  This  flight 
of  rhetoric  was  perverted  by  his  opponents  into 
“Perish  India”;  and  though  he  indignantly 
repudiated  the  misrepresentation,  it  continued  to 
be  repeated  against  him  for  years  thereafter,  and 
to  be  cited  as  an  instance  of  the  irresponsible 
violence  of  the  friends  of  the  Eastern  Christians. 

The  most  conspicuous  and  characteristic  merits 
of  Freeman  as  an  historian  may  be  summed  up 
in  six  points  :  love  of  truth,  love  of  justice,  in¬ 
dustry,  common  sense,  breadth  of  view,  and 
power  of  vividly  realising  the  political  life  of  the 
past. 

Every  one  knows  the  maxim,  pectus  facit 
theologum }  a  maxim  accountable,  by  the  way, 

1  “The  heart  makes  the  theologian.” 


Edward  Freeman  277 

for  a  good  deal  of  weak  theology.  More  truly 
may  it  be  said  that  the  merits  of  a  great  historian 
are  far  from  lying  wholly  in  his  intellectual 
powers.  Among  the  highest  of  such  merits, 
merits  which  the  professional  student  has  even 
more  reason  to  appreciate  than  the  general  reader, 
because  he  more  frequently  discerns  the  disturbing 
causes,  are  two  moral  qualities.  One  is  the  zeal 
for  truth,  with  the  willingness  to  undertake,  in  a 
search  for  it,  a  toil  by  which  no  credit  will  ever 
be  gained.  The  other  is  a  clear  view  of,  and 
loyal  adherence  to,  the  permanent  moral  standards. 
In  both  these  points  Freeman  stood  in  the  front 
rank.  He  was  kindly  and  fair  in  his  judgments, 
and  ready  to  make  all  the  allowances  for  any 
man’s  conduct  which  the  conditions  of  his  time 
suggested,  but  he  hated  cruelty,  falsehood,  oppres¬ 
sion,  whether  in  Syracuse  twenty-four  centuries 
ago  or  in  the  Ottoman  empire  to-day.  That 
conscientious  industry  which  spares  no  pains  to 
get  as  near  as  possible  to  the  facts  never  failed 
him.  Though  he  talked  less  about  facts  and 
verities  than  Carlyle  did,  Carlyle  was  not  so 
assiduous  and  so  minutely  careful  in  sifting  every 
statement  before  he  admitted  it  into  his  pages. 
That  he  was  never  betrayed  by  sentiment  into 
partisanship  it  would  be  too  much  to  say. 
Scottish  critics  have  accused  him,  perhaps  not 
without  justice,  of  being  led  by  his  English 
patriotism  to  overstate  the  claims  of  the  English 


278  Biographical  Studies 

Crown  to  suzerainty  over  Scotland.  J.  R.  Green, 
as  well  as  the  late  Mr.  C.  H.  Pearson,  thought 
that  the  same  cause  disposed  him  to  overlook 
the  weak  points  in  the  character  of  Harold  son 
of  Godwin,  one  of  his  favourite  heroes.  But 
there  have  been  few  writers  who  have  so  seldom 
erred  in  this  way ;  few  who  have  striven  so 
earnestly  to  do  full  justice  to  every  cause  and 
every  person.  Even  the  race  prejudices  which 
he  allowed  himself  to  indulge,  in  letters  and  talk, 
against  Irishmen,  Frenchmen,  and  Jews,  scarcely 
ever  appear  in  his  books.  The  characters  he 
has  drawn  of  Lucius  Cornelius  Sulla,  William 
the  Conqueror  and  William  the  Red,  St.  Thomas 
of  Canterbury  (none  of  whom  he  liked),  and,  in 
his  History  of  Sicily ,  of  Nicias,  are  models  of  the 
fairness  which  historical  portraiture  requires.  It 
is  especially  interesting  to  compare  his  picture 
of  the  unfortunate  Athenian  with  the  equally 
vigorous  but  harsher  view  of  Grote.  Freeman, 
whom  many  people  thought  fierce,  was  one  of 
the  most  soft-hearted  of  men,  and  tolerant  of 
everything  but  perfidy  and  cruelty.  Though 
disposed  to  be  positive  in  his  opinions,  he  was 
always  willing  to  reconsider  a  point  when  any 
new  evidence  was  discovered  or  any  new  argu¬ 
ment  brought  to  his  notice,  and  not  unfrequently 
modified  his  view  in  the  light  of  such  evidence 
or  arguments.  It  wras  this  passion  for  accuracy 
and  for  that  lucidity  of  statement  which  is  the 


Edward  Freeman  279 

necessary  adjunct  of  real  accuracy,  that  made  him 
deal  so  sternly  with  confused  thinkers  and  careless 
writers.  Carelessness  seemed  to  him  a  moral 
fault,  because  a  fault  which  true  conscientiousness 
excludes.  So  also  clearness  of  conception  and 
exact  precision  in  the  use  of  words  were  so 
natural  to  him,  and  appeared  so  essential  to  good 
work,  that  he  would  set  down  the  want  of  them 
rather  to  indolence  than  to  incapacity,  and  apply 
to  them  a  proportionately  severe  censure.  Mere 
ignorance  he  could  pardon,  but  when  it  was,  as 
often  happens,  even  in  persons  of  considerable 
pretensions,  joined  to  presumption,  his  wrath  was 
the  hotter  because  he  deemed  it  a  wholly  righteous 
wrath.  Never  touching  any  subject  which  he  had 
not  mastered,  he  thought  it  his  duty  as  a  critic  to 
expose  impostors,  and  rendered  in  this  way,  during 
the  years  when  he  wrote  for  the  Saturday  Review , 
services  to  English  scholarship  second  only  to 
those  which  were  embodied  in  his  own  treatises. 
It  must  be  confessed  that  he  enjoyed  the  work, 
and,  like  Samuel  Johnson,  was  not  displeased 
to  be  told  that  he  had  “  tossed  and  gored  several 
persons.” 

His  determination  to  get  to  the  bottom  of  a 
question  was  the  cause  of  the  censure  he  so  freely 
bestowed  both  on  lawyers,  who  were  wont  to 
rest  content  with  their  technicalities,  and  not  go 
back  to  the  historical  basis  on  which  those  techni¬ 
calities  rested,  and  on  politicians  who  fell  into 


280  Biographical  Studies 

the  habit  of  using  stock  phrases  which  muddled 
or  misrepresented  the  principles  involved.  The 
expression  “national  property,”  as  applied  to 
tithes,  incensed  him,  and  gave  occasion  for  some 
of  his  most  vigorous  writing.  So  the  common¬ 
place  grumblings  against  the  presence  of  bishops 
in  the  House  of  Lords,  which  may  be  heard  from 
people  who  acquiesce  in  the  presence  of  hereditary 
peers,  led  him  to  give  the  most  clear  and  forcible 
statement  of  the  origin  and  character  of  that  House 
which  our  time  has  produced.  Here  he  was  on 
ground  he  knew  thoroughly.  But  his  habits  of 
accuracy  were  not  less  fully  illustrated  by  his  atti¬ 
tude  towards  branches  of  history  he  had  not  ex¬ 
plored.  With  a  profound  and  minute  knowledge 
of  English  history  down  to  the  fourteenth  century, 
so  far  as  his  aversion  to  the  employment  of 
manuscript  authorities  would  allow,  and  a  scarcely 
inferior  knowledge  of  foreign  European  history 
during  the  same  period,  with  a  less  full  but  very 
sound  knowledge  down  to  the  middle  of  the 
sixteenth  century,  and  with  a  thorough  mastery 
of  pretty  nearly  all  ancient  history,  his  familiarity 
with  later  European  history,  and  with  the  history 
of  such  outlying  regions  as  India  or  America, 
was  not  much  beyond  that  of  the  average  educated 
man.  He  used  to  say  when  questioned  on  these 
matters  that  “  he  had  not  come  down  to  that 
yet.”  But  when  he  had  occasion  to  refer  to  those 
periods  or  countries,  he  hardly  ever  made  a 


Edward  Freeman  281 

mistake.  If  he  did  not  know,  he  did  not  refer ; 
if  he  referred,  he  had  seized,  as  if  by  instinct, 
something  which  was  really  important  and  service¬ 
able  for  his  purpose.  The  same  remark  applies 
(speaking  generally)  to  Gibbon  and  to  Macaulay, 
and  I  have  heard  Freeman  make  it  of  the  writ¬ 
ings  of  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith,  for  whom  he  had  a 
warm  admiration. 

Freeman’s  abstention  from  the  use  of  manu¬ 
script  sources  was  virtually  prescribed  by  his 
persistence  in  refusing  to  work  out  of  his  own 
library,  or,  as  he  used  to  say,  out  of  a  room 
which  he  could  consider  to  be  his  library  for  the 
time  being.  As,  however,  the  original  authori¬ 
ties  for  the  times  with  which  he  chiefly  dealt 
are,  with  few  or  unimportant  exceptions,  all  in 
print,  this  habit  can  hardly  be  considered  a 
defect  in  his  historical  qualifications.  In  han¬ 
dling  the  sources  he  was  a  judicious  critic  and  a 
sound  scholar,  thoroughly  at  home  in  Greek  and 
Latin,  and  sufficiently  equipped  in  Anglo-Saxon, 
or,  as  he  called  it,  Old  English.  Of  his  breadth 
of  view,  of  the  command  he  had  of  the  whole 
sweep  of  his  knowledge,  of  his  delight  in  bringing 
together  things  the  most  remote  in  place  or  time, 
it  is  superfluous  to  speak.  These  merits  are 
perhaps  most  conspicuously  seen  in  the  plan  of 
his  treatise  on  Federal  Government,  as  well  as 
in  the  execution  of  that  one  volume  which  un¬ 
fortunately  was  all  he  produced  of  what  might 


2  8 2  Biographical  Studies 

have  been,  if  completed,  a  book  of  the  utmost 
value.  But  one  or  two  trifling  illustrations 
of  this  habit  of  living  in  an  atmosphere  in 
which  the  past  was  no  less  real  to  him  than 
the  present  may  be  forgiven.  When  careless 
friends  directed  letters  to  him  at  “  Somerleaze, 
Wookey,  Somerset,”  Wookey  being  a  village  a 
quarter  of  a  mile  from  his  house,  but  on  the  other 
side  of  the  river  Axe,  he  would  write  back  com¬ 
plaining  that  they  were  “confusing  the  England 
and  Wales  of  the  seventh  century.”  When  his 
attention  had  been  called  to  a  discussion  in  the 
weekly  journals  about  Shelley’s  first  wife  he  wrote 
to  me,  “  Why  will  they  worry  us  with  this 
Harrietfrage ?  You  and  I  have  quite  enough 
to  do  with  Helen,  and  Theodora,  and  Mary 
Stuart.”  So  in  addressing  Somersetshire  rustics 
during  his  election  campaign  in  1868,  he  could 
not  help  on  one  occasion  referring  to  Ptolemy 
Euergetes,  and  on  another  launching  out  into 
an  eloquent  description  of  the  Landesgemeinde 
of  Uri. 

Industry  came  naturally  to  Freeman,  because 
he  was  fond  of  his  own  studies  and  did  not 
think  of  his  work  as  task  work.  The  joy  in 
reading  and  writing  about  bygone  times  sprang 
from  the  intensity  with  which  he  realised  them. 
He  had  no  geographical  imagination,  finding 
no  more  pleasure  in  books  of  travel  than  in 
dramatic  poetry.  But  he  loved  to  dwell  in  the 


Edward  Freeman  283 

past,  and  seemed  to  see  and  feel  and  make  him¬ 
self  a  part  of  the  events  he  described.  Next 
to  their  worth  as  statements  of  carefully  investi¬ 
gated  facts,  the  chief  merit  of  his  books  lies  in 
the  sense  of  reality  which  fills  them.  The  politics 
of  Corinth  or  Sicyon,  the  contest  of  William  the 
Red  with  St.  Anselm,  interested  him  as  keenly 
as  a  general  election  in  which  he  was  himself  a 
candidate.  Looking  upon  current  events  with 
an  historian’s  eye,  he  was  fond,  on  the  other 
hand,  of  illustrating  features  of  Roman  history 
from  incidents  he  had  witnessed  when  taking 
part  in  local  government  as  a  magistrate;  and 
in  describing  the  relations  of  Hermocrates  and 
Athenagoras  at  Syracuse  he  drew  upon  observa¬ 
tions  which  he  had  made  in  watching  the  dis¬ 
cussions  of  the  Hebdomadal  Council  at  Oxford. 
This  power  of  realising  the  politics  of  ancient 
or  mediaeval  times  was  especially  useful  to  him 
as  a  writer,  because  without  it  his  minuteness 
might  have  verged  on  prolixity,  seeing  that  he 
cared  exclusively  for  the  political  part  of  history. 
It  was  one  of  the  points  in  which  he  rose  superior 
to  most  of  those  German  students  with  whom  it 
is  natural  to  compare  him.  Many  of  them  have 
equalled  him  in  industry  and  diligence ;  some 
have  surpassed  him  in  the  ingenuity  which  they 
bring  to  bear  upon  obscure  problems ;  but  few  of 
them  have  shown  the  same  gift  for  understanding 
what  the  political  life  of  remote  times  really  was. 


284  Biographical  Studies 

Like  Gibbon,  Freeman  was  not  a  mere  student, 
but  also  a  man  with  opportunities  of  mixing  in 
affairs,  accustomed  to  bear  his  share  in  the  worlds 
work,  and  so  better  able  than  the  mere  student 
can  be  to  comprehend  how  that  work  goes  forward. 
Though  he  was  too  peculiar  in  his  views  and  his 
way  of  stating  them  to  have  been  adapted  either 
to  the  House  of  Commons  or  to  a  local  assembly, 
and  would  indeed  have  been  wasted  upon  nine¬ 
teen-twentieths  of  the  business  there  transacted, 
he  loved  politics  and  watched  them  with  a 
shrewdly  observant  eye.  Though  he  indulged 
his  foibles  in  some  directions,  he  could  turn  upon 
history  a  stream  of  clear  common  sense  which 
sometimes  made  short  work  of  German  conjec¬ 
tures.  And  he  was  free  from  the  craving  to 
have  at  all  hazards  something  new  to  advance, 
be  it  a  trivial  fact  or  an  unsupported  guess.  He 
was  accustomed  of  late  years  to  complain  that 
German  scholarship  seemed  to  be  suffering  from 
the  passion  for  ctwas  Neues ,  and  the  consequent 
disposition  to  disparage  work  which  did  not 
abound  with  novelties,  however  empty  or  tran¬ 
sient  such  novelties  might  be. 

To  think  of  the  Germans  is  to  think  of 
industry.  Freeman  was  a  true  Teuton  in  the 
mass  of  his  production.  Besides  the  seven  thick 
volumes  devoted  to  the  Norman  Conquest  and 
William  Rufus,  the  four  thick  volumes  to  Sicily, 
four  large  volumes  of  collected  essavs.  and  nine  or 


Edward  Freeman  285 

ten  smaller  volumes  on  architectural  subjects,  on 
the  English  constitution,  on  the  United  States, 
on  the  Slavs  and  the  Turks,  he  wrote  an  even 
greater  quantity  of  matter  which  appeared  in  the 
Saturday  Review  during  the  twenty  years  from 
1856  to  1876,  and  it  was  by  these  articles,  not 
less  than  by  his  books,  that  he  succeeded  in 
dispelling  many  current  errors  and  confusions, 
and  in  establishing  some  of  his  own  doctrines 
so  firmly  that  we  now  scarcely  remember  what 
iteration  and  reiteration,  in  season  and  out  of 
season,  and  much  to  the  impatience  of  those 
who  remembered  that  they  had  heard  these 
doctrines  often  before,  were  needed  to  make  them 
accepted  by  the  public.  Freeman’s  swift  facility 
was  due  to  his  power  of  concentration.  He 
always  knew  what  he  meant  an  article  to  contain 
before  he  sat  down  to  his  desk;  and  in  his  his¬ 
torical  researches  he  made  each  step  so  certain 
that  he  seldom  required  to  reinvestigate  a  point 
or  to  change,  in  revising  for  the  press,  the  sub¬ 
stance  of  what  he  had  written. 

In  his  literary  habits  he  was  so  methodical 
and  precise  that  he  could  carry  on  three  under¬ 
takings  at  the  same  time,  keeping  on  different 
tables  in  his  working  rooms  the  books  he  needed 
for  each,  and  passing  at  stated  hours  from  one 
to  the  other.  It  is  often  remarked  that  the 
growth  of  journalism,  forcing  men  to  write 
hastily  and  profusely,  tends  to  injure  literature 


286  Biographical  Studies 

both  in  matter  and  in  manner.  In  point  of 
matter,  Freeman,  though  for  the  best  part  of 
his  life  a  very  prolific  journalist,  did  not  seem 
to  suffer.  He  was  as  exact,  clear,  and  thorough 
at  the  end  as  he  had  been  at  the  beginning. 
On  his  style,  however,  the  results  were  unfor¬ 
tunate.  It  retained  its  force  and  its  point,  but 
it  became  diffuse,  not  that  each  particular  sen¬ 
tence  was  weak,  or  vague,  or  wordy,  but  that 
what  was  substantially  the  same  idea  was 
apt  to  be  reiterated,  with  slight  differences  of 
phrase,  in  several  successive  sentences  or  para¬ 
graphs.  He  was  fond  of  the  Psalter,  great  part 
of  which  he  knew  by  heart,  and  we  told  him 
that  he  had  caught  too  much  of  the  manner  of 
Psalm  cxix.  This  tendency  to  repetition  caused 
some  of  his  books,  and  particularly  the  Norman 
Conquest  and  William  Rtifus,  to  swell  to  a  por¬ 
tentous  bulk.  Those  treatises,  which  constitute 
a  history  of  England  from  a.d.  1042  to  1100, 
would  be  more  widely  read  if  they  had  been, 
as  they  ought  to  have  been,  reduced  to  three  or 
four  volumes ;  and  as  he  came  to  perceive  this, 
he  resolved  in  the  last  year  of  his  life  to  re¬ 
publish  the  Norman  Conqtiest  in  a  condensed 
form.  To  be  obliged  to  compress  was  a  whole¬ 
some,  though  unwelcome,  discipline,  and  the 
result  is  seen  in  some  of  his  smaller  books, 
such  as  the  historical  essays,  and  the  sketches 
of  English  towns,  often  wonderfully  fresh  and 


Edward  Freeman  287 

vigorous  bits  of  work.  Anxiety  to  be  scrupu¬ 
lously  accurate  runs  into  prolixity,  and  Freeman 
so  loved  his  subjects  that  it  pained  him  to  omit 
any  characteristic  detail  a  chronicler  had  pre¬ 
served  ;  as  he  once  observed  to  a  distinguished 
writer  who  was  dealing  with  a  much  later 
period,  “You  know  so  much  about  your  peo¬ 
ple  that  you  have  to  leave  out  a  great  deal, 
I  know  so  little  that  I  must  tell  all  I  know.” 
The  tendency  to  repeat  the  same  word  too  fre¬ 
quently  sprang  from  his  preference  for  words  of 
Teutonic  origin  and  his  pride  in  what  he  deemed 
the  purity  of  his  English.  His  pages  would 
have  been  livelier  had  he  felt  free  to  indulge 
in  the  humour  with  which  his  private  letters 
sparkled ;  for  he  was  full  of  fun,  though  it  often 
turned  on  points  too  recondite  for  the  public. 
But  it  was  only  in  the  notes  to  his  histories,  and 
seldom  even  there,  that  he  gave  play  to  one  of 
the  merits  that  most  commended  him  to  his 
friends. 

So  far  of  his  books.  He  was,  however,  also 
Regius  Professor  of  History  at  Oxford  during 
the  last  eight  years  of  his  life,  and  thus  the  head 
of  the  historical  faculty  in  his  own  University 
which  he  dearly  loved.  That  he  was  less  ef¬ 
fective  as  a  teacher  than  as  a  writer  may  be 
partly  ascribed  to  his  having  come  too  late  to 
a  new  kind  of  work,  and  one  which  demands 
the  freshness  of  youth ;  partly  also  to  the 


288  Biographical  Studies 

cramping  conditions  under  which  professors 
have  to  teach  at  Oxford,  where  everything  is 
governed  by  a  system  of  examinations  which 
Freeman  was  never  tired  of  denouncing  as  ruin¬ 
ous  to  study.  His  friends,  however,  doubted 
whether  the  natural  bent  of  his  mind  was 
towards  oral  teaching.  It  was  a  peculiar  mind, 
which  ran  in  a  deep  channel  of  its  own,  and 
could  not  easily,  if  the  metaphor  be  permissible, 
be  drawn  off  to  irrigate  the  adjoining  fields. 
He  was  always  better  at  putting  his  own 
views  in  a  clear  and  telling  way  than  at 
laying  his  intellect  alongside  of  yours,  appre¬ 
hending  your  point  of  view,  and  setting  him¬ 
self  to  meet  it.  Or,  to  put  the  same  thing 
differently,  you  learned  more  by  listening  to 
him  than  by  conversing  with  him.  He  had 
not  the  quick  intellectual  sympathy  and  effu¬ 
sion  which  feels  its  way  to  the  heart  of  an  audi¬ 
ence,  and  indeed  derives  inspiration  from  the 
sight  of  an  audience.  In  his  election  meetings 
I  noticed  that  the  temper  and  sentiment  of  the 
listeners  did  not  in  the  least  affect  him ;  what 
he  said  was  what  he  himself  cared  to  say,  not 
what  he  felt  they  would  wish  to  hear.  So  also 
in  his  lecturing  he  pleased  himself,  and  chose 
the  topics  he  liked  best  rather  than  those  which 
the  examination  scheme  prescribed  to  the  stu¬ 
dents.  Perhaps  he  was  right,  for  he  was  of  those 
whose  excellence  in  performance  depends  upon 


Edward  Freeman  289 

the  enjoyment  they  find  in  the  exercise  of  their 
powers.  But  even  on  the  topics  he  selected,  he 
did  not  take  hold  of  and  guide  the  mind  of  the 
students,  realising  their  particular  difficulties  and 
needs,  but  simply  delivered  his  own  message  in 
his  own  way.  Admitting  this  deficiency,  the  fact 
remains  that  he  was  not  only  an  ornament  to  the 
University  by  the  example  he  set  of  unflagging 
zeal,  conscientious  industry,  loyalty  to  truth,  and 
love  of  freedom,  but  also  a  stimulating  influence 
upon  those  who  were  occupied  with  history. 
He  delighted  to  surround  himself  with  the  most 
studious  of  the  younger  workers,  gave  them 
abundant  encouragement  and  recognition,  and 
never  grudged  the  time  to  help  them  by  his 
knowledge  or  his  counsel. 

Much  the  same  might  be  said  of  his  lifelong 
friend  and  illustrious  predecessor  in  the  chair  of 
history  (Dr.  Stubbs),  whom  Freeman  had  been 
generously  extolling  for  many  years  before  the 
merits  of  that  admirable  scholar  became  known  to 
the  public.  Stubbs  disliked  lecturing  ;  and  though 
once  a  year  he  delivered  a  “  public  lecture  ”  full  of 
wisdom,  and  sometimes  full  of  wit  also,  he  was  not 
effective  as  a  teacher,  not  so  effective,  for  instance, 
as  Bishop  Creighton,  who  won  his  reputation 
at  Merton  College  long  before  he  became  Pro¬ 
fessor  of  Ecclesiastical  History  at  Cambridge. 
But  Stubbs,  by  his  mere  presence  in  the  Uni¬ 
versity,  and  by  the  inexhaustible  kindness  with 

U 


290  Biographical  Studies 

which  he  answered  questions  and  gave  advice, 
rendered  great  services  to  the  studies  of  the  place. 
It  may  be  doubted  whether,  when  he  was  raised 
to  the  episcopal  bench,  history  did  not  lose  more 
than  the  Church  of  England  gained.  Other  men 
of  far  less  ability  could  have  discharged  five-sixths 
of  a  bishop’s  duties  equally  well,  but  there  was  no 
one  else  in  England,  if  indeed  in  Europe,  capable 
of  carrying  on  his  historical  researches.  So  Dr. 
Lightfoot  was,  as  Professor  at  Cambridge,  doing 
work  for  Christian  learning  even  more  precious 
than  the  work  which  is  still  affectionately  re¬ 
membered  in  his  diocese  of  Durham. 

Few  men  have  had  a  genius  for  friendship 
equal  to  Freeman’s.  The  names  of  those  he 
cared  for  were  continually  on  his  lips,  and  their 
lives  in  his  thoughts ;  their  misfortunes  touched 
him  like  his  own ;  he  was  always  ready  to 
defend  them,  always  ready  to  give  any  aid  they 
needed.  No  differences  of  opinion  affected  his 
regard.  Sensitive  as  he  was  to  criticism,  he 
received  their  censure  on  any  part  of  his  wTork 
without  offence.  The  need  he  felt  for  knowing 
how  they  fared  and  for  sharing  his  thoughts  with 
them  expressed  itself  in  the  enormous  correspond¬ 
ence,  not  of  business,  but  of  pure  affection,  which 
he  kept  up  with  his  many  friends,  and  wrhich 
forms,  for  his  letters  were  so  racy  that  many  of 
them  were  preserved,  the  fullest  record  of  his 
life. 


Edward  Freeman  291 

This  warmth  of  feeling  deserves  to  be  dwelt  on, 
because  it  explains  the  tendency  to  vehemence 
in  controversy  which  brought  some  enmities 
upon  him.  There  was  an  odd  contrast  between 
his  fondness  for  describing  wars  and  battles  and 
that  extreme  aversion  to  militarism  which  made 
him  appear  to  dislike  the  very  existence  of  a 
British  army  and  navy.  So  his  combativeness, 
and  the  zest  with  which  he  bestowed  shrewd 
blows  on  those  who  encountered  him,  though 
due  to  his  wholesome  scorn  for  pretenders,  and 
his  hatred  of  falsehood  and  injustice,  seemed  in¬ 
consistent  with  the  real  kindliness  of  his  nature. 
The  kindliness,  however,  no  one  who  knew  him 
could  doubt;  it  showed  itself  not  only  in  his 
care  for  dumb  creatures  and  for  children,  but  in 
the  depth  and  tenderness  of  his  affections.  Of 
religion  he  spoke  little,  and  only  to  his  most 
intimate  friends.  In  opinion  he  had  drifted  a 
long  way  from  the  Anglo-Catholic  position  of 
his  early  manhood ;  but  he  remained  a  sincerely 
pious  Christian. 

Though  his  health  had  been  infirm  for  some 
years  before  his  death,  his  literary  activity  did 
not  slacken,  nor  did  his  powers  show  signs  of 
decline.  There  is  nothing  in  his  writings,  nor 
in  any  writings  of  our  time,  more  broad,  clear, 
and  forcible  than  many  chapters  of  the  History 
of  Sicily.  Much  of  his  work  has  effected  its 
purpose,  and  will,  by  degrees,  lose  its  place  in 


292  Biographical  Studies 

the  public  eye.  But  much  will  live  on  into  a 
yet  distant  future,  because  it  has  been  done  so 
thoroughly,  and  contains  so  much  sound  and 
vigorous  thinking,  that  coming  generations  of 
historical  students  will  need  it  and  value  it  almost 
as  our  own  has  done. 


ROBERT  LOWE 
VISCOUNT  SHERBROOKE1 


Had  Robert  Lowe  died  in  1868,  when  he  became 
a  Cabinet  Minister,  his  death  would  have  been  a 
political  event  of  the  first  magnitude ;  but  when 
he  died  in  1892  (in  his  eighty-second  year)  hardly 
anybody  under  forty  years  of  age  knew  who  Lord 
Sherbrooke  was,  and  the  new  generation  won¬ 
dered  why  their  seniors  should  feel  any  interest 
in  the  disappearance  of  a  superannuated  peer 
whose  name  had  long  since  ceased  to  be  heard 
in  either  the  literary  or  the  political  world.  It 
requires  an  effort  to  believe  that  he  was  at  one 
time  held  the  equal  in  oratory  and  the  superior 
in  intellect  of  Mr.  Bright  and  Mr.  Gladstone. 
There  are  few  instances  in  our  annals  of  men  who 
have  been  equally  famous  and  whose  fame  has 
been  bounded  by  so  short  a  span  out  of  a  long  life. 

No  one  who  knew  Lowe  ever  doubted  his 
abilities.  He  made  a  brilliant  reputation,  first  at 
Winchester  (where,  as  his  autobiography  tells  us, 

1  A  carefully  written  Life  of  Lord  Sherbrooke  (in  two  volumes)  by  Mr. 
Patchett  Martin  was  published  in  1896.  The  most  interesting  part  of 
it  is  the  short  fragment  of  autobiography  with  which  it  begins,  and  which 
carries  the  story  down  to  Lowe’s  arrival  in  Australia. 


293 


294  Biographical  Studies 

he  was  miserable)  and  then  at  Oxford,  where  he  was 
the  contemporary  and  fully  the  peer  of  Roundell 
Palmer  (afterwards  Lord  Chancellor  Selborne) 
and  of  Archibald  Tait  (afterwards  Archbishop  of 
Canterbury).  He  was  much  sought  after  and 
wonderfully  effective  as  a  private  tutor  or  “  coach  ” 
in  classical  subjects,  being  not  only  an  excellent 
scholar  but  extremely  clear  and  stimulating  as  a 
teacher.  He  retained  his  love  of  literature  all 
through  life,  and  made  himself,  inter  alia  per- 
multa ,  a  good  Icelandic  scholar  and  a  fair  Sanskrit 
scholar.  For  mathematics  he  had  no  turn  at  all. 
Active  sports,  he  tells  us,  he  enjoyed,  character¬ 
istically  adding,  “  they  open  to  dulness  also  its  road 
to  fame.”  When  he  left  the  University,  where 
anecdotes  of  his  caustic  wit  were  long  current,  he 
tried  his  fortune  at  the  Bar,  but  with  such  scant 
success  that  he  presently  emigrated  to  New 
South  Wales,  soon  rose  to  prominence  and  un¬ 
popularity  there,  returned  in  ten  years  with  a 
tolerable  fortune  and  a  detestation  of  democracy, 
became  a  leading-article  writer  on  the  Times , 
entered  Parliament,  but  was  little  heard  of  till 
Lord  Palmerston  gave  him  (in  1859)  the  place  of 
Vice-President  of  the  Committee  of  Council  on 
Education.  His  function  in  that  office  was  to 
administer  the  grants  made  from  the  national 
treasury  to  elementary  schools,  and  as  he  found 
the  methods  of  inspection  rather  lax,  and  noted  a 
tendency  to  superficiality  and  a  neglect  of  back- 


Robert  Lowe  295 

ward  children,  he  introduced  new  rules  for  the 
distribution  of  the  grant  (the  so-called  “  Revised 
Code  ”)  which  provoked  violent  opposition.  The 
motive  was  good,  but  the  rules  were  too  mechani¬ 
cal  and  rigid  and  often  worked  harshly ;  so  he 
was  presently  driven  from  office  by  an  attack  led 
by  Lord  Robert  Cecil  (now  Lord  Salisbury). 

Though  Lowe  became  known  by  this  struggle, 
his  conspicuous  fame  dates  from  1865,  when  he 
appeared  as  the  trenchant  critic  of  a  measure  for 
extending  the  parliamentary  franchise  in  boroughs, 
introduced  by  a  private  member.  Next  year 
his  powers  shone  forth  in  their  full  lustre.  The 
Liberal  Ministry  of  Lord  Russell,  led  in  the 
House  of  Commons  by  Mr.  Gladstone,  had 
brought  in  a  Franchise  Extension  Bill  (applying 
to  boroughs  only)  which  excited  the  dislike 
of  the  more  conservative  or  more  timid  among 
their  supporters.  This  dislike  might  not  have  gone 
beyond  many  mutterings  and  a  few  desertions 
but  for  the  vehemence  with  which  Lowe  opposed 
the  measure.  He  fought  against  it  in  a  series  of 
speeches  which  produced  a  greater  impression  in 
the  House  of  Commons,  and  roused  stronger 
feelings  of  admiration  and  hostility  in  the 
country,  than  any  political  addresses  had  done 
since  1832.  The  new  luminary  rose  so  sud¬ 
denly  to  the  zenith,  and  cast  so  unexpected  a 
light  that  everybody  was  dazzled ;  and  though 
many  dissented,  and  some  attacked  him  bitterly, 


296  Biographical  Studies 

few  ventured  to  meet  him  in  argument  on  the 
ground  he  had  selected.  The  effect  of  these 
speeches  of  1866  can  hardly  be  understood  by 
any  one  who  reads  them  to-day  unless  he  knows 
how  commonplace  and  “practical,”  that  is  to 
say,  averse  to  general  reasonings  and  historical 
illustrations,  the  character  of  parliamentary  de¬ 
bating  was  becoming  even  in  Lowe’s  time.  It 
is  still  more  practical  and  still  less  ornate  in  our 
own  day. 

The  House  of  Commons  then  contained, 
and  has  indeed  usually  contained  (though  some 
Houses  are  much  better  than  others),  many  ca¬ 
pable  lawyers,  capable  men  of  business,  capable 
country  gentlemen;  many  men  able  to  express 
themselves  with  clearness,  fluency,  and  that  sort 
of  temperate  good  sense  which  Englishmen  es¬ 
pecially  value.  Few,  however,  were  able  to  pro¬ 
duce  finished  rhetoric ;  still  fewer  had  a  range  of 
thought  and  knowledge  extending  much  beyond 
the  ordinary  education  of  a  gentleman  and  the 
ordinary  ideas  of  a  politician ;  and  the  assembly 
was  one  so  intolerant  of  rhetoric,  and  so  much  in¬ 
clined  to  treat,  as  unpractical,  facts  and  arguments 
drawn  from  recondite  sources,  that  even  those  who 
possessed  out-of-the-way  learning  were  disposed, 
and  rightly  so,  to  use  it  sparingly.  In  Robert 
Lowe,  however,  a  remarkable  rhetorical  and  dia¬ 
lectical  power  was  combined  with  a  command 
of  branches  of  historical,  literary,  and  economic 


Robert  Lowe  297 

knowledge  so  unfamiliar  to  the  average  member 
as  to  have  for  him  all  the  charm  of  novelty.  The 
rhetoric  was  sometimes  too  elaborate.  The  politi¬ 
cal  philosophy  was  not  always  sound.  But  the 
rhetoric  was  so  polished  that  none  could  fail  to 
enjoy  it ;  and  the  political  philosophy  was  put 
in  so  terse,  bright,  and  pointed  a  form  that  it 
made  the  ordinary  country  gentleman  fancy  him¬ 
self  a  philosopher  while  he  listened  to  it  in  the 
House  or  repeated  it  to  his  friends  at  the  club. 
The  speeches,  which,  though  directed  against 
a  particular  measure,  constituted  an  indictment 
of  democratic  government  in  general,  had  the 
advantages  of  expressing  what  many  felt  but 
few  had  ventured  to  say,  and  of  being  delivered 
from  one  side  of  the  House  and  cheered  by 
the  other  side.  No  position  gives  a  debater  in 
the  House  of  Commons  such  a  vantage  ground 
for  securing  attention.  Its  rarity  makes  it  re¬ 
markable.  If  the  speaker  who  attacks  his  own 
party  is  supposed  to  do  so  from  personal  motives, 
the  personal  element  gives  piquancy.  If  he  may 
be  credited  with  conscientious  conviction,  his 
shafts  strike  with  added  weight,  for  how  strong 
must  conviction  be  when  it  turns  a  man  against 
his  former  friends.  Accordingly,  nothing  so 
much  annoys  a  party  and  gratifies  its  antag¬ 
onists  as  when  one  of  its  own  recalcitrant 
members  attacks  it  in  flank.  When  one  looks 
back  now  at  the  contents  of  these  speeches  — 


298  Biographical  Studies 

there  were  only  five  or  six  of  them  —  and  finds 
one’s  self  surprised  at  their  success,  this  favour¬ 
ing  circumstance  and  the  whole  temper  of  the 
so-called  “  upper  classes  ”  need  to  be  remem¬ 
bered.  The  bulk  of  the  wealthier  commercial 
class  and  a  large  section  of  the  landed  class  had 
theretofore  belonged  to  the  Liberal  party.  Most 
of  them,  however,  were  then  already  beginning  to 
pass  through  what  was  called  Whiggism  into 
habits  of  thought  that  were  practically  Tory. 
They  did  not  know  how  far  they  had  gone  till 
Lowe’s  speeches  told  them,  and  they  welcomed 
his  ideas  as  justifying  their  own  tendencies. 

In  themselves,  as  pieces  either  of  rhetoric  or 
of  “  civil  wisdom,”  the  speeches  are  not  first-rate. 
No  one  would  dream  of  comparing  them  to 
Burke’s,  in  originality,  or  in  richness  of  diction, 
or  in  weight  of  thought.  But  for  the  moment 
they  were  far  more  appreciated  than  Burke’s 
were  by  the  House  of  his  time,  which  thought  of 
dining  while  he  thought  of  convincing.  Robert 
Lowe  was  for  some  months  the  idol  of  a  large 
part  of  the  educated  class,  and  indeed  of  that 
part  chiefly  which  plumed  itself  upon  its  culture. 
I  recollect  to  have  been  in  those  days  at  a 
breakfast  party  given  by  an  eminent  politician 
and  nominal  supporter  of  the  Liberal  Ministry, 
and  to  have  heard  Mr.  G.  S.  Venables,  the  leader 
of  the  Saturday  Review  set,  an  able  and  copious 
writer  who  was  a  sort  of  literary  and  political 


Robert  Lowe  299 

oracle  among  his  friends,  deliver,  amid  general 
applause,  including  that  of  the  host,  the  opinion 
that  Lowe  was  an  intellectual  giant  compared  to 
Mr.  Gladstone,  and  that  the  reputation  of  the 
latter  had  been  extinguished  for  ever. 

This  period  of  glory,  which  was  enhanced  by 
the  fall  of  Lord  Russell  and  Mr.  Gladstone  from 
power  in  June  1866  —  the  defeat  came  on  a  minor 
point,  but  was  largely  due  to  Lowe’s  speeches  — 
lasted  till  Lowe,  who  had  now  become  a  force  to 
be  counted  with,  obtained  office  as  Chancellor  of 
the  Exchequer  in  the  Liberal  Ministry  which 
Mr.  Gladstone  formed  in  the  end  of  1868.  From 
that  moment  his  position  declined.  He  lost  popu¬ 
larity  and  influence  both  with  the  country  and 
in  the  House  of  Commons.  His  speeches  were 
always  able,  but  they  did  not  seem  to  tell  when 
delivered  from  the  ministerial  bench.  His  finan¬ 
cial  proposals,  though  ingenious,  were  thought 
too  ingenious,  and  showed  a  deficient  perception 
of  the  tendencies  of  the  English  mind.  No 
section  likes  being  taxed,  but  Lowe’s  budgets 
met  with  a  more  than  usually  angry  opposition. 
His  economies  and  retrenchments,  so  far  from 
bringing  him  the  credit  he  deserved,  exposed 
him  to  the  charge  of  cheese-paring  parsimony, 
and  did  much  to  render  the  Ministry  unpopular. 
Before  that  Ministry  fell  in  1874,  Lowe,  who 
had  in  1873  exchanged  the  Exchequer  for  the 
Home  Office,  had  almost  ceased  to  be  a  personage 


300  Biographical  Studies 

in  politics.  He  did  nothing  to  retrieve  his  fame 
during  the  six  years  of  opposition  that  followed, 
seldom  spoke,  took  little  part  in  the  denunciation 
of  Lord  Beaconsfield’s  Eastern  and  Afghan  policy, 
which  went  on  from  1876  till  1880,  and  once  at 
least  gave  slight  signs  of  declining  mental  power. 
So  in  1880  he  was  relegated  to  the  House  of 
Lords,  because  the  new  Liberal  Government  of 
that  year  could  not  make  room  for  him.  Very 
soon  thereafter  his  memory  began  to  fail,  and  for 
the  last  ten  years  of  his  life  he  had  been  practi¬ 
cally  forgotten,  though  sometimes  seen,  a  pathetic 
figure,  at  evening  parties.  There  is  hardly  a 
parallel  in  our  parliamentary  annals  to  so  com¬ 
plete  an  eclipse  of  so  brilliant  a  luminary. 

This  rapid  obscuration  of  a  reputation  which 
was  genuine,  for  Lowe’s  powers  had  been  amply 
proved,  was  due  to  no  accident,  and  was  apparent 
long  before  mental  decay  set  in.  The  causes  lay 
in  himself.  One  cause  was  purely  physical.  He 
was  excessively  short-sighted,  so  much  so  that 
when  he  was  writing  a  letter,  his  nose  was  apt  to 
rub  out  the  words  his  pen  had  traced ;  and  this 
defect  shut  him  out  from  all  that  knowledge  of 
individual  men  and  of  audiences  which  is  to  be 
obtained  by  watching  their  faces.  Mr.  Gladstone, 
who  never  seemed  to  resent  Lowe’s  attacks,  and 
greatly  admired  his  gifts  —  it  was  not  so  clear 
that  Lowe  reciprocated  the  admiration  —  used  to 
relate  that  on  one  occasion  when  a  foreign  poten- 


Robert  Lowe 


3° 1 


tate  met  the  Minister  in  St.  James’s  Park  and  put 
out  his  hand  in  friendly  greeting,  Lowe  repelled 
his  advances,  and  when  the  King  said,  “  But,  Mr. 
Lowe,  you  know  me  quite  well,”  he  answered, 
“  Yes,  indeed,  I  know  you  far  too  well,  and  I  don’t 
want  to  have  anything  more  to  do  with  you.” 
He  had  mistaken  the  monarch  for  a  prominent 
politician  with  whom  he  had  had  a  sharp  en¬ 
counter  on  a  deputation  a  few  days  before  !  For 
social  purposes  Lowe  might  almost  as  well  have 
been  blind;  yet  he  did  not  receive  that  kind  of 
indulgence  which  is  extended  to  the  blind.  In 
the  interesting  fragment  of  autobiography  which 
he  left,  he  attributes  his  unpopularity  entirely  to 
this  cause,  declaring  that  he  was  really  of  a  kindly 
nature,  liking  his  fellow-men  just  as  well  as  most 
of  them  like  one  another.1  But  in  truth  his  own 
character  had  something  to  answer  for.  Without 
being  ill-natured,  he  was  deemed  a  hard-natured 
man,  who  did  not  appear  to  consider  the  feelings 
of  others.  He  had  indeed  a  love  of  mischief, 
and  gleefully  tells  in  his  autobiography  how, 
when  travelling  in  his  youth  through  the  Scottish 
Highlands,  he  drove  the  too  self-conscious  Words¬ 
worth  wild  by  his  incessant  praise  of  Walter  Scott.2 

1  In  his  autobiography  he  writes,  “  With  a  quiet  temper  and  a  real 
wish  to  please,  I  have  been  obliged  all  my  life  to  submit  to  an  amount  of 
unpopularity  which  I  really  did  not  deserve,  and  to  feel  myself  condemned 
for  what  were  really  physical  rather  than  moral  deficiencies.” 

2  There  was  an  anecdote  current  in  the  University  of  Oxford  down  to 
my  time  that  when  Lowe  was  examining  in  the  examination  which  the 
statutes  call  “  Responsions,”  the  dons  “  Little-go,”  and  the  undergraduates 


302  Biographical  Studies 

He  had  not  in  political  life  more  than  his  fair 
share  of  personal  enmities.  One  of  them  was 
Disraeli’s.  They  were  not  unequally  matched. 
Lowe  was  intellectually  in  some  respects  stronger, 
but  he  wanted  Disraeli’s  skill  in  managing  men 
and  assemblies.  Disraeli  resented  Lowe’s  sar¬ 
casms,  and  on  one  occasion,  when  the  latter 
had  made  an  indiscreet  speech,  went  out  of  his 
way  to  inflict  on  him  a  personal  humiliation. 

Nor  was  this  Lowe’s  only  defect.  Powerful 
in  attack,  he  was  feeble  in  defence.  Terrible  as 
a  critic,  he  had,  as  his  official  career  showed,  little 
constructive  talent,  little  tact  in  shaping  or  recom¬ 
mending  his  measures.  Unsteady  or  inconstant 
in  purpose,  he  was  at  one  moment  headstrong, 
at  another  timid  or  vacillating.  These  faults, 
scarcely  noticed  when  he  was  in  opposition, 
sensibly  reduced  his  value  as  a  minister  and  as  a 
Cabinet  colleague. 

In  private  Lowe  was  good  company,  bright, 
alert,  and  not  unkindly.  He  certainly  did  not, 
as  was  alleged  of  another  famous  contemporary, 

“  Smalls,”  a  friend  coming  in  while  the  viva  voce  was  in  progress,  asked 
him  how  he  was  getting  on.  “  Excellently,”  said  Lowe,  “  five  men 
plucked  already,  and  the  sixth  very  shaky.”  Another  tale,  not  likely  to 
have  been  invented,  relates  that  when  he  and  several  members  of  the 
then  Liberal  Ministry  were  staying  in  Dublin  with  the  Lord  Lieutenant, 
and  had  taken  an  excursion  into  the  Wicklow  hills,  they  found  themselves 
one  afternoon  obliged  to  wait  for  half  an  hour  at  a  railway  station.  To 
pass  the  time,  Lowe  forthwith  engaged  in  a  dispute  about  the  charge  with 
the  car-drivers  who  had  brought  them,  a  dispute  which  soon  became  hot 
and  noisy,  to  the  delight  of  Lowe,  but  to  the  horror  of  the  old  Lord 
Chancellor,  who  was  one  of  the  party. 


Robert  Lowe  303 

Lord  Westbury,  positively  enjoy  the  giving  of 
pain.  But  he  had  a  most  unchristian  scorn  for  the 
slow  and  the  dull  and  the  unenlightened,  and  never 
restrained  his  scorching  wit  merely  for  the  sake  of 
sparing  those  who  came  in  his  way.  If  the  dis¬ 
tinction  be  permissible,  he  was  not  cruel  but  he 
was  merciless,  that  is  to  say,  unrestrained  by  com¬ 
passion.  Instances  are  not  wanting  of  men  who 
have  maintained  great  influence  in  spite  of  their 
rough  tongues  and  the  enmities  which  rough 
tongues  provoke.  But  such  men  have  usually 
also  possessed  some  of  the  arts  of  popularity,  and 
have  been  able  to  retain  the  adherence  of  their 
party  at  large,  even  when  they  had  alienated 
many  who  came  into  personal  contact  with  them. 
This  was  not  Lowe’s  case.  He  did  not  conceal 
his  contempt  for  the  multitude,  and  had  not  the 
tact  needed  for  humouring  it,  any  more  than  for 
managing  the  House  of  Commons.  The  very 
force  and  keenness  of  his  intellect  kept  him  aloof 
from  other  people  and  prevented  him  from  under¬ 
standing  their  sentiments.  He  saw  things  so 
clearly  that  he  could  not  tolerate  mental  con¬ 
fusion,  and  was  apt  to  reach  conclusions  so  fast 
that  he  missed  perceiving  some  of  the  things 
which  are  gradually  borne  in  upon  slower  minds. 
There  are  also  instances  of  strong  men  who, 
though  they  do  not  revile  their  opponents,  incur 
hatred  because  their  strength  and  activity  make 
them  feared.  Hostility  concentrates  itself  on  the 


304  Biographical  Studies 

opponents  deemed  most  formidable,  and  a  politi¬ 
cal  leader  who  is  spared  while  his  fellows  are 
attacked  cannot  safely  assume  that  this  immunity 
is  a  tribute  to  his  virtues.  Incessant  abuse  fell  to 
the  lot  of  Mr.  Bright,  who  was  not  often,  and  of 
Mr.  Gladstone,  who  was  hardly  ever,  personally 
bitter  in  invective.  But  in  compensation  Mr. 
Bright  and  Mr.  Gladstone  received  enthusiastic 
loyalty  from  their  followers.  For  Lowe  there  was 
no  such  compensation.  Even  his  own  side  did 
not  love  him.  There  was  also  a  certain  harshness, 
perhaps  a  certain  narrowness,  about  his  views. 
Even  in  those  days  of  rigid  economics,  he  took  an 
exceptionally  rigid  view  of  all  economic  problems, 
refusing  to  make  allowance  for  any  motives 
except  those  of  bare  self-interest.  Though  he 
did  not  belong  by  education  or  by  social 
ties  to  the  Utilitarian  group,  and  gave  an  un¬ 
gracious  reception  to  J.  S.  Mill’s  first  speeches 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  he  was  a  far  more 
stringent  and  consistent  exponent  of  the  harder 
kind  of  Benthamism  than  was  Mill  himself.  He 
professed,  and  doubtless  to  some  extent  felt,  a 
contempt  for  appeals  to  historical  or  literary 
sentiment,  and  relished  nothing  more  than  derid¬ 
ing  his  own  classical  training  as  belonging  to  an 
effete  and  absurd  scheme  of  education.  He  left 
his  mark  on  our  elementary  school  system  by 
establishing  the  system  of  payment  by  results, 
but  nearly  every  change  made  in  that  system 


Robert  Lowe  305 

since  his  day  has  tended  to  destroy  the  alterations 
he  made  and  to  bring  back  the  older  condition 
of  things,  though  no  doubt  in  an  amended  form. 
His  ideas  of  University  reform  were  crude  and 
barren,  limited,  indeed,  to  the  substitution  of  what 
the  Germans  call  “  bread  studies  ’’for  mental  culti¬ 
vation,  and  to  the  extension  of  the  plan  of  com¬ 
petitive  examinations  for  honours  and  money 
prizes,  a  plan  which  more  and  more  displeases 
the  most  enlightened  University  teachers,  and 
is  felt  to  have  done  more  harm  than  good  to 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  where  it  has  had  the 
fullest  play.  He  had  also,  and  could  give  good 
reasons  for  his  opinion,  a  hearty  dislike  to  en¬ 
dowments  of  all  kinds ;  and  once,  when  asked  by 
a  Royal  Commission  to  suggest  a  mode  of  im¬ 
proving  their  application,  answered  in  his  trenchant 
way,  “  Get  rid  of  them.  Throw  them  into  the  sea.” 

It  would  not  be  fair  to  blame  Lowe  for  the 
results  which  followed  his  vigorous  action  against 
the  extension  of  the  suffrage  in  1866,  for  no  one 
could  then  have  predicted  that  in  the  following 
year  the  Tories,  beguiled  by  Mr.  Disraeli,  would 
reverse  their  former  attitude  and  carry  a  suffrage 
bill  far  wider  than  that  which  they  had  rejected  a 
year  before.  But  the  sequel  of  the  successful 
resistance  of  1866  may  stand  as  a  warning  to 
those  who  think  that  the  course  of  thoroughgoing 
opposition  to  a  measure  they  dislike  is,  because 
it  seems  courageous,  likely  to  be  the  right  and 


306  Biographical  Studies 

wise  course  for  patriotic  men.  Had  the  moderate 
bill  of  1866  been  suffered  to  pass,  the  question  of 
further  extending  the  suffrage  might  possibly  have 
slept  for  another  thirty  years,  for  there  was  no 
very  general  or  urgent  cry  for  it  among  the  work¬ 
ing  people,  and  England  would  have  continued 
to  be  ruled  in  the  main  by  voters  belonging  to 
the  middle  class  and  the  upper  section  of  the 
working  class.  The  consequence  of  the  heated 
contest  of  1866  was  not  only  to  bring  about 
a  larger  immediate  change  in  1867,  but  to 
create  an  interest  in  the  question  which  soon 
prompted  the  demand  for  the  extension  of  house¬ 
hold  suffrage  to  the  counties,  and  completed  in 
1884-85  the  process  by  which  England  has  be¬ 
come  virtually  a  democracy,  though  a  plutocratic 
democracy,  still  affected  by  the  habits  and  notions 
of  oligarchic  days.  Thus  Robert  Lowe,  as  much 
as  Disraeli  and  Gladstone,  may  in  a  sense  be 
called  an  author  of  the  tremendous  change  which 
has  passed  upon  the  British  Constitution  since 
1866,  and  the  extent  of  which  was  not  for  a 
long  while  realised.  Lowe  himself  never  re¬ 
canted  his  views,  but  never  repeated  his  declara¬ 
tion  of  them,  feeling  that  he  had  incurred 
unpopularity  enough,  and  probably  feeling  also 
that  the  case  was  hopeless. 

People  who  disliked  his  lugubrious  forecasts 
used  to  call  him  a  Cassandra,  perhaps  forgetting 
that,  besides  the  distinctive  feature  of  Cassandra’s 


Robert  Lowe  307 

prophecies  that  nobody  believed  them,  there  was 
another  distinctive  feature,  viz.  that  they  came 
true.  Did  Lowe’s?  It  is  often  profitable  and 
sometimes  amusing  to  turn  back  to  the  predic¬ 
tions  through  which  eminent  men  relieved  their 
perturbed  souls,  and  see  how  far  these  superior 
minds  were  able  to  discern  the  tendencies,  already 
at  work  in  their  time,  which  were  beginning  to 
gain  strength,  and  were  destined  to  determine 
the  future.  Whoever  reads  Lowe’s  speeches  of 
1865-67  may  do  worse  than  glance  at  the  same 
time  at  a  book,1  long  since  forgotten,  which  con¬ 
tains  the  efforts  of  a  group  of  young  University 
Liberals  to  refute  the  arguments  used  by  him 
and  by  Lord  Cairns,  the  strongest  of  his  allies, 
in  their  opposition  to  schemes  of  parliamentary 
reform. 

To  compare  the  optimism  of  these  young 
writers  and  Lowe’s  pessimism  with  what  has 
actually  come  to  pass  is  a  not  uninstructive 
task.  True  it  is  that  England  has  had  only 
thirty-five  years’  experience  of  the  Reform  Act 
of  1867,  and  only  seventeen  years’  experience 
of  that  even  greater  step  towards  pure  democ¬ 
racy  which  was  effected  by  the  Franchise  and 
Redistribution  Acts  of  1884-85.  We  are  still 
far  from  knowing  what  sorts  of  Parliaments  and 
policies  the  enlarged  suffrage  will  end  by  giving. 
But  some  at  least  of  the  mischiefs  Lowe  foretold 


1  Essays  on  Reform,  published  in  1867. 


308  Biographical  Studies 

have  not  arrived.  He  expected  first  of  all  a 
rapid  increase  in  corruption  and  intimidation  at 
parliamentary  elections.  The  quality  of  the 
House  of  Commons  would  decline,  because  money 
would  rule,  and  small  boroughs  would  no  longer 
open  the  path  by  which  talent  could  enter. 
Members  would  be  either  millionaires  or  dema¬ 
gogues,  and  they  would  also  become  far  more 
subservient  to  their  constituents.  Universal 
suffrage  would  soon  arrive,  because  no  halting 
place  between  the  ^io  franchise1  and  universal 
suffrage  could  be  found.  Placed  on  a  democratic 
basis,  the  House  of  Commons  would  not  be  able 
to  retain  its  authority  over  the  Executive.  The 
House  of  Lords,  the  Established  Church,  the 
judicial  bench  (in  that  dignity  and  that  indepen¬ 
dence  which  are  essential  to  its  usefulness),  would 
be  overthrown  as  England  passed  into  “  the  bare 
and  level  plain  of  democracy  where  every  ant-hill 
is  a  mountain  and  every  thistle  a  forest  tree.” 
These  and  the  other  features  characteristic  of 
popular  government  on  which  Lowe  savagely 
descanted  were  pieced  together  out  of  Plato  and 
Tocqueville,  coupled  with  his  own  disagreeable 
experiences  of  Australian  politics.  None  of  the 
predicted  evils  can  be  said  to  have  as  yet  become 
features  of  the  polity  and  government  of  England,2 

1  The  then  borough  qualification,  which  Mr.  Gladstone’s  Bill  proposed 
to  reduce  to  £j. 

2  Mr.  Gladstone  said  to  me  in  1897  that  the  extension  of  the  suffrage 
had,  in  his  judgment,  improved  the  quality  of  legislation,  making  it  more 


Robert  Lowe  309 

though  the  power  of  the  House  relatively  to  the 
Cabinet  does  seem  to  be  declining.  Yet  some 
of  Lowe’s  incidental  remarks  are  true,  and  not 
least  true  is  his  prediction  that  democracies  will 
be  found  just  as  prone  to  war,  just  as  apt  to  be 
swept  away  by  passion,  as  other  kinds  of  govern¬ 
ment  have  been.  Few  signs  herald  the  approach 
of  that  millennium  of  peace  and  enlightenment 
which  Cobden  foretold  and  for  which  Gladstone 
did  not  cease  to  hope. 

No  one  since  Lowe  has  taken  up  the  part  of 
Advocatus  diaboli  against  democracy  which  he 
played  in  1866.1  Since  Disraeli  passed  the  House¬ 
hold  Suffrage  in  Boroughs  Bill  in  1867,  a  nulli¬ 
fication  of  Lowe’s  triumph  which  incensed  him 
more  than  ever  against  Disraeli,  no  one  has  ever 
come  forward  in  England  as  the  avowed  enemy 
of  changes  designed  to  popularise  our  government. 
Parties  have  quarrelled  over  the  time  and  the 
manner  of  extensions  of  the  franchise,  but  the 
issue  of  principle  raised  in  1866  has  not  been 


regardful  of  the  interests  of  the  body  of  the  people,  but  had  not  improved 
the  quality  of  the  House  of  Commons. 

1  Sir  H.  S.  Maine’s  Quarterly  Review  articles,  published  in  a  volume 
under  the  title  of  Popular  Government ,  come  nearest  to  being  a  literary 
presentation  of  the  case  against  democracy,  but  they  are,  with  all  their 
ingenuity  and  grace  of  style,  so  provokingly  vague  and  loosely  expressed 
that  there  can  seldom  be  found  in  them  a  proposition  with  which  one  can 
agree,  or  from  which  one  can  differ.  E.  de  Laveleye’s  well-known  book 
is  not  much  more  substantial,  but  instruction  may  (as  respects  France)  be 
found  in  the  late  Edmond  Scherer’s  De  la  Democratic,  and  (as  respects 
England  and  the  United  States)  in  M.  Ostrogorski’s  recent  book,  Democracy 
and  the  Organisation  of  Political  Parties. 


310  Biographical  Studies 

raised  again.  Even  in  1884,  when  Mr.  Gladstone 
carried  his  bill  for  assimilating  the  county  franchise 
to  that  existing  in  boroughs,  the  Tory  party  did 
not  oppose  the  measure  in  principle,  but  confined 
themselves  to  insisting  that  it  should  be  accom¬ 
panied  by  a  scheme  for  the  redistribution  of  seats. 
The  secret,  first  unveiled  by  Disraeli,  that  the 
masses  will  as  readily  vote  for  the  Tory  party  as 
for  the  Liberal,  is  now  common  property,  and 
universal  suffrage,  when  it  comes  to  be  offered,  is 
as  likely  to  be  offered  by  the  former  party  as  by 
the  latter.  This  gives  a  touch  of  historical  in¬ 
terest  to  Lowe’s  speeches  of  1866.  They  are  the 
swan-song  of  the  old  constitutionalism.  The 
changes  which  came  in  1867  and  1884  must  have 
come  sooner  or  later,  for  they  were  in  the  natural 
line  of  development  as  we  see  it  all  over  the 
world ;  but  they  might  have  come  much  later 
had  not  Lowe’s  opposition  wrecked  the  moderate 
scheme  of  1866.  Apart  from  that  episode  Lowe’s 
career  would  now  be  scarcely  remembered,  or 
would  be  remembered  by  those  wTho  knew  his 
splendid  gifts  as  an  illustration  of  the  maxim  that 
mere  intellectual  power  does  not  stand  first  among 
the  elements  of  character  that  go  to  the  winning 
of  a  foremost  place. 


WILLIAM  ROBERTSON  SMITH 


Robertson  Smith,1  the  most  widely  learned  and 
one  of  the  most  powerful  teachers  that  either 
Cambridge  or  Oxford  could  show  during  the 
years  of  his  residence  in  England,  died  at  the 
age  of  forty-seven  on  the  31st  of  March  1894. 
To  the  English  public  generally  his  name  was 
little  known,  or  was  remembered  only  in  connec¬ 
tion  with  the  theological  controversy  and  ecclesi¬ 
astical  trial  of  which  he  had  been  the  central  figure 
in  Scotland  fifteen  years  before.  But  on  the 
Continent  of  Europe  and  by  Orientalists  generally 
he  was  regarded  as  the  foremost  Semitic  scholar 
of  Britain,  and  by  those  who  knew  him  as  one  of 
the  most  remarkable  men  of  his  time. 

He  was  born  in  1846  in  the  quiet  pastoral 
valley  of  the  Don,  in  Aberdeenshire.  His  father, 

1  No  Life  of  Robertson  Smith  has  yet  been  written,  but  it  is  hoped  that 
one  may  be  prepared  by  his  intimate  friend,  Mr.  J.  Sutherland  Black.  A 
portrait  of  him  (by  his  friend  Sir  George  Reid,  late  President  of  the  Royal 
Scottish  Academy)  hangs  in  the  library  of  Christ’s  College,  Cambridge,  to 
which  Smith’s  collection  of  Oriental  books  was  presented  by  his  friends, 
and  another  has  been  placed  in  the  Divinity  College  of  the  United  Free 
Presbyterian  Church  at  Aberdeen.  A  memorial  window  has  been  set  up 
in  the  chapel  of  the  University  of  Aberdeen,  where  he  won  his  first  dis¬ 
tinctions.  I  have  to  thank  my  friend  Mr.  Black  for  some  suggestions  he 
has  kindly  made  after  perusing  this  sketch. 


31  * 


312  Biographical  Studies 

who  was  a  minister  of  the  Scottish  Free  Church 
in  the  parish  of  Keig,  possessed  high  mathematical 
talent,  and  his  mother,  who  survived  him  six  years, 
was  a  woman  of  great  force  of  character,  who 
retained  till  her  death,  at  seventy-six  years  of 
age,  the  full  exercise  of  her  keen  intelligence. 
Smith  went  straight  from  his  father’s  teaching  to 
the  University  of  Aberdeen,  and  after  graduating 
there,  continued  his  studies  first  at  Bonn  in  1865, 
and  afterwards  at  Gottingen  (1869).  When  only 
twenty-four  he  became  Professor  of  Oriental 
Languages  in  the  College  or  Divinity  School  of 
the  Free  Church  at  Aberdeen,  and  two  years 
later  was  chosen  one  of  the  revisers  of  the  Old 
Testament,  a  striking  honour  for  so  young  a 
man.  In  1881  he  became  first  assistant-editor 
and  then  editor-in-chief  of  the  ninth  edition  of  the 
Encyclopedia  Britannica.  He  was  exceptionally 
qualified  for  the  post  by  the  variety  of  his  attain¬ 
ments  and  by  the  extreme  quickness  of  his  mind, 
which  rapidly  acquired  knowledge  on  almost  any 
kind  of  subject.  Those  who  knew  him  are  agreed 
that  among  all  the  eminent  men  who  have  been 
connected  with  this  great  Encyclopedia  from  its 
first  beginning  a  century  and  a  half  ago  until  now 
he  was  surpassed  by  none,  if  equalled  by  any,  in 
the  range  of  his  learning  and  in  the  capacity  to 
bring  learning  to  bear  upon  editorial  work.  He 
took  infinite  pains  to  find  the  most  competent 
writers,  and  was  able  to  exercise  effective  per- 


William  Robertson  Smith  313 

sonal  supervision  over  a  very  large  proportion  of 
the  articles.  The  ninth  edition  was  much  fuller 
and  more  thorough  than  any  of  its  predecessors ; 
and  good  as  the  first  twelve  volumes  were,  a  still 
higher  level  of  excellence  was  attained  in  the  latter 
half,  a  result  due  to  his  industry  and  discernment. 
Not  a  few  of  the  articles  on  subjects  connected 
with  the  Old  Testament  were  from  his  own  pen ; 
and  they  were  among  the  best  in  the  work. 

The  appearance  of  one  of  them,  that  entitled 
“  Bible,”  which  contained  a  general  view  of  the 
history  of  the  canonical  books  of  Scripture,  their 
dates,  authorship,  and  reception  by  the  Christian 
Church,  became  a  turning-point  in  his  life.  The 
propositions  he  stated  regarding  the  origin  of 
parts  of  the  Old  Testament,  particularly  the 
Pentateuch,  excited  alarm  and  displeasure  in 
Scotland,  where  few  persons  had  become  aware 
of  the  conclusions  reached  by  recent  Biblical 
scholars  in  Continental  Europe.  The  article 
was  able,  clear,  and  fearless,  plainly  the  work 
of  a  master  hand.  The  views  it  advanced  were 
not  for  the  most  part  due  to  Smith’s  own  in¬ 
vestigations,  but  were  to  be  found  in  the  writings 
of  other  learned  men.  Neither  would  they  now 
be  thought  extreme ;  they  are  in  fact  accepted  to¬ 
day  by  many  writers  of  unquestioned  orthodoxy 
in  Britain  and  a  (perhaps  smaller)  number  in  the 
United  States.  In  1876,  however,  these  views 
were  new  and  startling  to  those  who  had  not 


314  Biographical  Studies 

studied  in  Germany  or  followed  the  researches  of 
such  men  as  Ewald,  Kuenen,  and  Wellhausen. 
The  Scottish  Free  Church  had  theretofore  prided 
itself  upon  the  rigidity  of  its  orthodoxy ;  and  while 
among  the  younger  ministers  there  were  a  good 
many  able  and  learned  scholars  holding  what  used 
to  be  called  “advanced  views,”  the  mass  of  the 
elder  and  middle-aged  clergy  had  gone  on  in  the 
old-fashioned  traditions  of  verbal  inspiration,  and 
took  every  word  in  the  Five  Books  (except  the 
last  chapter  of  Deuteronomy)  to  have  been  written 
down  by  Moses.  It  was  only  natural  that  their 
anger  should  be  kindled  against  the  young  pro¬ 
fessor,  whose  theories  seemed  to  cut  away  the 
ground  from  under  their  feet.  Proceedings  were 
(1876)  taken  against  him  before  the  Presbytery 
of  Aberdeen,  and  the  case  found  its  way  thence 
to  the  Synod  of  Aberdeen,  and  ultimately  to  the 
General  Assembly  of  the  Free  Church.  In  one 
form  or  another  (for  the  flame  was  lit  anew  by 
other  articles  published  by  him  in  the  Encyclo¬ 
pedia)  it  lingered  on  for  five  years.  So  far  from 
yielding  to  the  storm,  Robertson  Smith  defied  it, 
maintaining  not  only  the  truth  of  his  views,  but 
their  compatibility  with  the  Presbyterian  standards 
as  contained  in  the  Confession  of  Faith  and  the 
Longer  and  Shorter  Catechisms.  In  this  latter 
contention  he  was  successful,  proving  that  the 
divines  of  the  sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries 
had  not  committed  themselves  to  any  specific 


William  Robertson  Smith  315 

doctrine  of  inspiration,  still  less  to  any  dogmatic 
deliverance  as  to  the  authorship  of  particular 
books  of  Scripture.  The  standards  simply  de¬ 
clared  that  the  Word  of  God  was  contained  in  the 
canonical  books,  and  as  there  had  been  little  or 
no  controversy  between  Protestants  and  Roman 
Catholics  regarding  the  date  or  the  authorship  or 
the  divine  authority  of  those  books  (apart  of 
course  from  disputes  regarding  the  Apocrypha), 
had  not  dealt  specifically  with  those  last  men¬ 
tioned  matters.  As  it  was  by  reference  to  the 
Confession  of  Faith  that  the  offence  alleged  had 
to  be  established,  Smith  made  good  his  defence ; 
so  in  the  end,  finding  it  impossible  to  convict  him 
of  deviation  from  the  standards,  and  thereby  to 
deal  with  him  as  an  ordained  minister  of  the 
Church,  his  adversaries  fell  back  on  the  plan  of 
depriving  him,  by  an  executive  rather  than  judicial 
vote,  not  indeed  of  his  clerical  status,  but  of  his 
professorship,  on  the  ground  of  the  alleged  “  un¬ 
settling  character”  of  his  teaching. 

Meanwhile,  however,  there  had  been  an  im¬ 
mense  rally  to  him  of  the  younger  clergy  and 
of  the  less  conservative  among  the  laity.  The 
main  current  of  Scottish  popular  thought  and 
life  had  ever  since  the  Reformation  flowed  in 
an  ecclesiastical  channel ;  and  even  nowadays, 
when  Scotland  is  rapidly  becoming  Anglicised, 
a  theological  or  ecclesiastical  question  excites  a 
wider  and  keener  interest  there  than  a  similar 


316  Biographical  Studies 

question  would  do  in  England.  So  in  Scotland 
for  four  years  “  the  Robertson  Smith  case  ”  was 
the  chief  topic  of  discussion  outside  as  well  as 
inside  the  Free  Church.  The  sympathy  felt  for 
the  accused  was  heightened  by  the  ingenuity, 
energy,  and  courage  with  which  he  defended  his 
position,  showing  a  power  of  argument  and 
repartee  which  made  it  plain  that  he  would 
have  held  a  distinguished  place  in  any  assembly 
whatever.  If  his  debating  had  a  fault,  it  was 
that  of  being  almost  too  dialectically  cogent,  so 
that  his  antagonists  felt  that  they  were  being 
foiled  on  the  form  of  the  argument  before  they 
could  get  to  the  issues  they  sought  to  raise. 
But  while  he  was  an  accomplished  lawyer  in 
matters  of  form,  he  was  no  less  an  accomplished 
theologian  in  matters  of  substance.  Although  the 
party  of  repression  triumphed  so  far  as  to  deprive 
him  of  his  chair,  the  victory  virtually  remained 
with  him,  not  only  because  he  had  shown  that  the 
Scottish  Presbyterian  standards  did  not  condemn 
the  views  he  held,  but  also  because  his  defence 
and  the  discussions  which  it  occasioned  had,  in 
bringing  those  views  to  the  knowledge  of  a  great 
number  of  thoughtful  laymen,  led  such  persons 
to  reconsider  their  own  position.  Some  of  them 
found  themselves  forced  to  agree  with  Smith. 
Others,  who  distrusted  their  capacity  for  arriving 
at  a  conclusion,  came  at  least  to  think  that  the 
questions  involved  did  not  affect  the  essentials  of 


William  Robertson  Smith  317 

faith,  and  must  be  settled  by  the  ordinary  canons 
of  historical  and  philological  criticism.  Thus  the 
trial  proved  to  be  a  turning-point  for  the  Scottish 
Churches,  much  as  the  Essays  and  Reviews  case 
had  been  for  the  Church  of  England  eighteen 
years  earlier.  Opinions  formerly  proscribed  were 
thereafter  freely  expressed.  Nearly  all  the  doc¬ 
trinal  prosecutions  subsequently  attempted  in 
the  Scottish  Presbyterian  Churches  have  failed. 
Much  feeling  has  been  excited,  but  the  result 
has  been  to  secure  a  greater  latitude  than  was 
dreamt  of  forty  years  ago.  At  first  the  rigidly 
orthodox  section  of  the  Free  Church,  now  al¬ 
most  confined  to  the  Highlands,  thought  of  se¬ 
ceding  from  the  main  body  on  the  ground  that 
tolerance  was  passing  into  indifference  or  unbe¬ 
lief.  But  the  new  ideas  continued  to  grow,  and 
the  sentiment  in  favour  of  letting  clergymen  as 
well  as  lay  church  members  put  a  lax  construc¬ 
tion  on  the  doctrinal  standards  drawn  up  in  the 
sixteenth  and  seventeenth  centuries,  has  spread 
as  widely  in  Scotland  as  in  England.  The  Pres¬ 
byterian  Churches  in  America  and  the  Roman 
Catholic  Church  now  stand  almost  alone  among 
the  larger  Christian  bodies  in  retaining  something 
of  the  ancient  rigidity.  Even  the  Roman  Church 
begins  to  feel  the  solvent  power  of  these  re¬ 
searches.  It  may  be  conjectured  that  as  the  pro¬ 
cess  of  adjusting  the  letter  of  Scripture  to  the 
conclusions  of  science  which  Galileo  was  not  per- 


318  Biographical  Studies 

mitted  to  apply  in  the  field  of  astronomy  has  now 
been  generally  applied  in  the  fields  of  geology 
and  biology,  so  all  the  churches  will  presently 
reconcile  themselves  to  the  conclusions  of  histori¬ 
cal  and  linguistic  criticism,  now  that  such  criti¬ 
cism  has  become  truly  scientific  in  its  methods. 

Having  no  longer  any  tie  to  Scotland,  as  he 
had  never  desired  a  pastoral  charge  there,  since 
he  felt  his  vocation  to  lie  in  study  and  teaching, 
Smith  was  hesitating  which  way  to  turn,  when  the 
offer  of  the  Lord  Almoner’s  Readership  in  Arabic, 
which  had  become  vacant  in  1883,  determined 
him  to  settle  in  Cambridge.  He  had  travelled 
in  Arabia  a  few  years  earlier,  thereby  adding  a 
colloquial  familiarity  to  his  grammatical  mastery 
of  the  language.  He  was  an  ardent  student  of 
Arabic  literature,  and  indeed  devoted  more  time 
to  it  than  to  Hebrew.  Though  he  had  felt 
deeply  the  attacks  made  upon  him,  and  was 
indignant  at  the  mode  of  his  dismissal,  he  was 
not  in  the  least  dispirited;  and  his  self-control 
was  shown  by  the  way  in  which  he  resisted  the 
temptation,  to  which  controversialists  are  prone, 
of  going  further  than  they  originally  meant  and 
thereby  damaging  the  position  of  their  supporters. 
Still,  he  was  weary  of  controversy,  and  pleased  to 
see  before  him  a  prospect  of  learned  quiet  and 
labour,  although  the  salary  of  the  Readership 
was  less  than  ^100  a  year.  Fortunately  he 
had  come  to  a  place  where  gifts  like  his  were 


William  Robertson  Smith  319 

appreciated.  The  Master  and  Fellows  of  Christ’s 
College  elected  him  to  a  fellowship  with  no 
duties  of  tuition  attached  to  it  —  a  wise  and  grace¬ 
ful  recognition  of  his  merits  which  did  them  the 
more  credit  because  they  had  very  little  personal 
knowledge  of  him,  while  he  had  possessed  no 
prior  tie  with  the  University.  Christ’s  is  one  of 
the  smaller  colleges,  but  has  almost  always  had 
men  of  distinction  among  its  fellows,  and  has  main¬ 
tained  a  high  standard  of  teaching.  In  the  list  of 
its  alumni  stand  the  names  of  John  Milton,  Isaac 
Barrow,  Ralph  Cudworth,  and  Charles  Darwin. 
Robertson  Smith  dwelt  in  it  for  the  rest  of  his 
days,  entering  into  the  life  of  hall  and  common- 
room  with  great  zest,  for  he  was  of  an  extremely 
sociable  turn,  and  the  College  became  proud  of 
him.  When  a  vacancy  occurred  in  the  office  of 
University  Librarian,  he  was  chosen  to  fill,  it. 
His  knowledge  of  and  fondness  for  books  fitted 
him  excellently  for  the  place,  but  the  details  of 
administration  worried  him,  and  it  was  a  change 
for  the  better  when  (in  1889),  on  the  death 
of  his  friend,  William  Wright,  he  became  Pro¬ 
fessor  of  Arabic.1  His  efforts  to  build  up  a 

1  There  was  an  aged  Jewish  scholar  who  came  now  and  then  to 
Cambridge  in  those  days,  and  who,  as  sometimes  happens,  disliked 
other  scholars  labouring  in  the  same  field.  He  was  (so  it  used  to  be  said) 
one  of  the  few  who  knew  exactly  how  the  word  which  we  write  Jehovah 
or  Iahve  ought  to  be  pronounced,  and  it  was  believed  that  he  had 
solemnly  cursed  Wright,  Smith,  and  a  third  Semitic  scholar  in  the  Sacred 
Name.  All  three  died  soon  afterwards. 

What  would  have  been  thought  of  this  in  the  Middle  Ages ! 


320  Biographical  Studies 

school  of  Oriental  studies  on  the  foundations  laid 
by  Wright,  and  with  the  help  of  an  eminent 
Syriac  scholar,  Bensley,  were  proving  successful, 
and  a  considerable  number  of  able  young  men 
were  gathering  round  him,  when  (in  1890)  the 
hand  of  disease  fell  upon  him,  obliging  him  first 
to  curtail  and  afterwards  to  intermit  his  lectures. 
The  last  year  of  his  life  was  a  year  of  suffering, 
borne  with  uncomplaining  fortitude. 

What  with  work  on  the  Encyclopedia  Britan- 
nica,  with  the  distractions  of  his  prolonged  trial, 
with  the  time  spent  in  oral  teaching,  and  with 
the  physical  weakness  of  his  latest  years,  Smith’s 
leisure  available  for  literary  production  was  not 
large,  and  the  books  he  has  left  do  not  adequately 
represent  either  his  accumulated  knowledge  or 
his  faculty  of  investigation.  The  earlier  books  — 
The  Old  Testament  in  the  Jewish  Church  and 
The  Prophets  of  Israel  (the  latter  a  series  of 
lectures  delivered  at  Glasgow) — are  comparatively 
popular  in  handling.  The  two  later  —  Kinship 
and  Marriage  in  Early  Arabia  and  The  Religion 
of  the  Semites  —  are  more  abstruse  and  technical, 
and  also  more  original,  dealing  with  topics  in 
which  their  author  was  a  pioneer,  though  he 
had  been  influenced  by,  and  acknowledged  in 
the  amplest  way  his  obligations  to,  his  friend 
John  F.  Maclennan,  the  author  of  Primitive 
Marriage .  The  Religion  of  the  Semites ,  though 
masterly  in  plan  and  execution,  and  though  it 


William  Robertson  Smith  321 

has  excited  the  admiration  of  the  few  Oriental 
scholars  competent  to  appraise  its  substantial 
merit,  suffers  from  its  incompleteness.  Only  the 
first  volume  was  published,  for  death  overtook 
the  author  before  he  could  put  into  final  shape  the 
materials  he  had  collected  for  the  full  development 
of  his  theories.  As  the  second  volume  would 
have  traced  the  connection  between  the  primitive 
religion  of  the  Arab  branches  of  the  Semitic 
stock  (including  Israel)  and  the  Hebrew  religion 
as  we  have  it  in  the  earlier  books  of  the  Old 
Testament,  the  absence  of  this  finished  statement 
is  a  loss  to  science.  Changes  had  passed  upon 
his  views  since  he  wrote  the  incriminated  articles, 
and  he  said  to  me  (I  think  about  1888)  that  he 
would  no  longer  undertake  any  clerical  duties. 
He  had  a  sensitive  conscience,  and  held  that  no 
clergyman  ought  to  use  language  in  the  pulpit 
which  did  not  express  his  personal  convictions. 

What  struck  one  most  in  Robertson  Smith’s 
writings  was  the  easy  command  wherewith  he 
handled  his  materials.  His  generalisations  were 
based  on  an  endlessly  patient  and  careful  study  of 
details,  a  study  in  which  he  never  lost  sight  of 
guiding  principles.  With  perfect  lucidity  and  an 
unstrained  natural  vigour,  there  was  a  sense  of 
abounding  and  overflowing  knowledge  which  in¬ 
spired  confidence  in  the  reader,  making  him  feel 
he  was  in  the  hands  of  a  master.  On  all  that 
pertained  to  the  languages  and  literature  of  the 


322  Biographical  Studies 

Arabic  branch  of  the  Semitic  races,  ancient  and 
modern  (for  he  did  not  claim  to  be  an  Assyriolo- 
gist),  his  knowledge  was  accurate  no  less  than 
comprehensive.  Full  of  deference  to  the  great 
scholars  —  no  one  spoke  with  a  warmer  admiration 
of  Noldeke,  Wellhausen,  and  Lagarde  than  he  did 
—  he  was  a  stringent  critic  of  unscientific  work  in 
the  sphere  of  history  and  physics  as  well  as  in 
that  of  philology,  quick  to  expose  the  uncritical 
assumptions  or  loose  hypotheses  of  less  careful 
though  more  pretentious  students.  He  used  to 
say  that  when  he  had  disposed  of  the  Encyclopedia 
Britannica ,  he  might  undertake  a  “  Dictionary  of 
European  Impostors.”  Oriental  lore  was  only 
one  of  many  subjects  in  which  he  might  have 
achieved  distinction.  His  mathematical  talents 
were  remarkable,  and  during  two  sessions  he 
taught  with  conspicuous  success  the  class  of 
Natural  Philosophy  in  the  University  of  Edin¬ 
burgh  as  assistant  professor.  He  had  a  com¬ 
petent  acquaintance  with  not  a  few  other  practical 
arts,  including  navigation,  and  once,  when  the 
compasses  of  the  vessel  on  which  he  was  sailing 
in  the  Red  Sea  got  out  of  order,  he  proved  to  be 
the  person  on  board  most  competent  to  set  them 
right.  In  metaphysics  and  theology,  in  ancient 
history  and  many  departments  of  modern  history, 
he  was  thoroughly  at  home.  Few,  indeed,  were 
the  subjects  that  came  up  in  the  course  of  con¬ 
versation  on  which  he  was  not  able  to  throw 


William  Robertson  Smith  323 

light,  for  the  range  of  his  acquirements  was  not 
more  striking  than  the  swiftness  and  precision 
with  which  he  brought  knowledge  to  bear  wher¬ 
ever  it  was  wanted. 

There  was  hardly  a  line  of  practical  life  in 
which  he  might  not  have  attained  a  brilliant 
success.  But  the  passion  for  knowledge  made 
him  prefer  the  life  of  a  scholar,  and  seemed  to 
have  quenched  any  desire  even  for  literary  fame. 

Learning  is  commonly  thought  of  as  a  weight 
to  be  carried,  which  makes  men  dull,  heavy,  or 
pedantic.  With  Robertson  Smith  the  effect  seemed 
to  be  exactly  the  opposite.  Because  he  knew  so 
much,  he  was  interested  in  everything,  and  threw 
himself  with  a  joyous  freshness  and  keenness  into 
talk  alike  upon  the  most  serious  and  the  lightest 
topics.  He  was  combative,  apt  to  traverse  a  propo¬ 
sition  when  first  advanced,  even  though  he  might 
come  round  to  it  afterwards ;  and  a  discussion 
with  him  taxed  the  defensive  acumen  of  his 
companions.  Having  once  spent  five  weeks 
alone  with  him  in  a  villa  at  Alassio  on  the 
Riviera,  I  observed  to  him  when  we  parted 
that  we  had  had  (as  the  Americans  say)  “  a 
lovelv  time  ”  together,  and  that  there  was  not 
an  observation  I  had  made  during  those  weeks 
which  he  had  not  contested.  He  laughed 
and  did  not  contest  that  observation.  Yet  this 
tendency,  while  it  made  his  society  more  stimu¬ 
lating,  did  not  make  it  less  agreeable,  because 


324  Biographical  Studies 

he  never  seemed  to  seek  to  overthrow  an 
adversary,  but  only  to  get  at  the  truth  of  the 
case,  and  his  manner,  though  positive,  had  about 
it  nothing  either  acrid  or  conceited.  One  could 
imagine  no  keener  intellectual  pleasure  than  his 
company  afforded,  for  there  was,  along  with  an 
exuberant  wealth  of  thought  and  knowledge,  an 
intensity  and  ardour  which  lit  up  every  subject 
which  it  touched.  I  once  invited  him  and  John 
Richard  Green  (the  historian)  to  meet  at  dinner. 
They  took  to  one  another  at  once,  nor  was  it  easy 
to  say  which  lamp  burned  the  brighter.  Smith 
had  wider  and  more  accurate  learning,  and  stronger 
logical  power,  but  Green  was  just  as  swift,  just  as 
fertile,  just  as  ingenious.  In  stature  Smith,  like 
Green,  was  small,  almost  diminutive ;  his  dark 
brown  eyes  bright  and  keen ;  his  speech  rapid ; 
his  laugh  ready  and  merry,  for  he  had  a  quick 
sense  of  humour  and  a  power  of  enjoying  things 
as  they  came.  The  type  of  intellect  suggested 
a  Teutonic  Scot  of  the  Lowlands,  but  in  appear¬ 
ance  and  temperament  he  was  rather  a  Scottish 
Celt  of  the  Highlands,  with  a  fire  and  a  gaiety, 
an  abounding  vivacity  and  vitality,  which  made 
him  a  conspicuous  figure  wherever  he  lived,  in 
Aberdeen,  in  Edinburgh,  in  Cambridge.  Even 
by  his  walk,  with  its  quick,  irregular  roll,  one  could 
single  him  out  at  a  distance  in  the  street. 

When  a  man  is  attractive  personally,  he  is 
all  the  more  attractive  for  being  unlike  other 


William  Robertson  Smith  325 

men,  and  he  often  becomes  the  centre  of  a 
group.  This  was  the  case  with  Smith.  His 
numerous  friends  were  so  much  interested  by 
him  that  when  they  met  their  talk  was  largely 
of  him,  and  many  friendships  were  based  on 
a  common  knowledge  of  this  one  person.  In¬ 
deed,  the  geniality,  elevation,  and  simplicity  of 
his  character  gave  him  a  quite  unusual  hold  on 
those  who  had  come  to  know  him  well.  Few 
men,  leading  an  equally  quiet  and  studious  life, 
have  inspired  so  much  regard  and  affection  in  so 
large  a  number  of  persons ;  few  teachers  have  had 
an  equal  power  of  stimulating  and  attracting  their 
pupils.  He  loved  teaching  hardly  less  than  he 
loved  the  investigation  of  truth,  and  he  was  the 
most  faithful  and  sympathetic  of  friends,  one  who 
was  felt  to  be  unique  while  he  lived  and  irreplace¬ 
able  when  he  had  departed. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  courage  he  had  shown 
in  confronting  his  antagonists  in  the  ecclesiastical 
courts.  That  courage  did  not  fail  him  in  the 
severer  trials  of  his  last  illness.  The  nature  of 
the  disease  of  which  he  died  was  disclosed  to 
him  by  his  physician  in  September  1892,  while 
an  international  Congress  of  Orientalists,  in  which 
he  presided  over  the  Semitic  section,  was  holding 
its  meetings.  A  festival  dinner  was  being  given 
in  honour  of  the  Congress  the  same  afternoon. 
When  the  physician  had  spoken,  Smith  simply 
remarked,  “  This  means  the  death  my  brother 


326  Biographical  Studies 

died  ”  (one  of  his  brothers  had  been  struck  by 
the  same  malady  a  few  years  before).  He  went 
straight  to  the  dinner,  and  was  throughout  the 
evening  the  gayest  and  brightest  of  the  guests. 

Fancy  sometimes  indulges  herself  in  imagining 
what  part  the  eminent  men  one  has  known  would 
have  played  had  their  lot  been  cast  in  some  other 
age.  So  I  have  fancied  that  Archbishop  Tait 
(described  in  an  earlier  chapter)  ought  to  have 
been  Primate  of  England  under  Edward  the 
Sixth  or  Elizabeth.  He  would  have  guided  the 
course  of  reform  more  prudently  and  more  firmly 
than  Cranmer  did  ;  he  would  have  shown  a  broader 
spirit  than  did  Parker  or  Whitgift.  So  Cardinal 
Manning,  had  he  lived  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
might  haply  have  become  General  of  the  Jesuit 
Order,  and  enjoyed  the  secret  control  of  the  politics 
of  the  Catholic  world.  So  Robertson  Smith,  had 
he  been  born  in  the  great  age  of  the  mediaeval 
universities,  might,  like  the  bold  dialectician  of 
whom  Dante  speaks,  have  “  syllogised  invidious 
truths  ” 1  in  the  U niversity  of  Paris  ;  or  had  Fortune 
placed  him  two  centuries  later  among  the  scholars 
of  the  Italian  Renaissance  in  its  glorious  prime, 
the  fame  of  his  learning  might  have  filled  half 
Europe. 

1  Par  ad.  x.  1 36,  of  Sigier,  “  Sillogizz6  invidiosi  veri.” 


HENRY  SIDGWICK 


Henry  Sidgwick  was  born  at  Skipton,  in  York¬ 
shire,  where  his  father  was  head-master  of  the 
ancient  grammar  school  of  the  town,  on  31st 
May  1838. 1  The  family  belonged  to  Yorkshire. 
He  was  a  precocious  boy,  and  used  to  delight  his 
brothers  and  sister  by  the  fertility  of  his  imagina¬ 
tion  in  inventing  games  and  stories.  Educated 
at  Rugby  School  under  Goulburn  (afterwards 
Dean  of  Norwich),  he  was  sent  at  an  unusually 
early  age  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge.  His 
brilliant  University  career  was  crowned  by  the 
first  place  in  the  classical  tripos,  and  by  a  first 
class  in  the  mathematical  tripos,  and  he  was 
speedily  elected  a  Fellow  of  Trinity.  Intel¬ 
lectual  curiosity  and  an  interest  in  the  prob¬ 
lems  of  theology  presently  drew  him  to  Germany, 
where  he  worked  at  Hebrew  and  Arabic  under 
Ewald  at  Gottingen,  as  well  as  with  other 
,  eminent  teachers.  After  hesitating  for  a  time 
whether  to  devote  himself  to  Oriental  studies 
or  to  classical  scholarship,  he  was  drawn  back  to 

1  It  is  hoped  that  a  Life  of  Sidgwick,  together  with  a  selection  from 
his  letters,  may  before  long  be  published. 

327 


328  Biographical  Studies 

philosophy  by  his  desire  to  investigate  questions 
bearing  on  natural  theology,  and  finally  settled 
down  to  the  pursuit  of  what  are  called  in  Cam¬ 
bridge  the  moral  sciences  —  metaphysics,  ethics, 
and  psychology;  becoming  first  a  College  Lec¬ 
turer  and  then  (in  1875)  a  University  Praelector  in 
these  subjects.  In  1869  he  resigned  his  Fellow¬ 
ship,  feeling  that  he  could  no  longer  consider 
himself  a  “  bona  fide  member  of  the  Church  of 
England,”  that  being  the  condition  then  attached 
by  law  to  the  holding  of  fellowships  in  the 
Colleges  at  Cambridge.  This  step  caused  surprise, 
for  the  test  was  deemed  a  very  vague  and  light 
one,  having  been  recently  substituted  for  a  more 
stringent  requirement,  and  there  had  been  many 
holders  of  fellowships  who  were  at  least  as  little 
entitled  to  call  themselves  bona  fide  members 
of  the  Established  Church  as  he  was.  But, 
as  was  afterwards  said  of  him  by  Mrs.  Cross 
(George  Eliot),  Sidgwick  was  expected  by  his 
intimate  friends  to  conform  to  standards  higher 
than  average  men  prescribe  for  their  own  con¬ 
duct.  Taken  in  conjunction  with  the  fact  that 
several  English  Dissenters  and  Scottish  Presby¬ 
terians  had  won  the  distinction  of  a  Senior 
Wranglership  and  been  debarred  from  fellowships, 
though  they  were  in  theological  opinion  more 
orthodox  than  some  nominal  members  of  the 
Established  Church  who  were  holding  fellowships, 
Sidgwick’s  conscientious  act  made  a  great  im- 


Henry  Sidgwick  329 

pression  in  Cambridge  and  did  much  to  hasten 
that  total  abolition  of  tests  in  the  Universities, 
which  was  effected  by  statute  in  1871  ;  for  in 
England  concrete  instances  of  hardship  and  in¬ 
justice  are  more  powerful  incitements  to  reform 
than  the  strongest  abstract  arguments,  and  Sidg¬ 
wick  was  already  so  eminent  and  so  respected 
a  figure  that  all  Cambridge  felt  the  absurdity  of 
excluding  such  a  man  from  its  honours  and  emolu¬ 
ments.  In  1883  he  was  appointed  Professor  of 
Moral  Philosophy,  and  continued  to  hold  that  post 
till  three  months  before  his  death  in  1900,  when 
failing  health  determined  him  to  resign  it. 

His  life  was  the  still  and  tranquil  life  of  the 
thinker,  teacher,  and  writer,  varied  by  no  events 
more  exciting  than  those  controversies  over 
reforms  in  the  studies  and  organisation  of  the 
University  in  which  his  sense  of  public  duty 
frequently  led  him  to  bear  a  part. 

These  I  pass  over,  but  there  is  one  branch  of 
his  active  work  to  which  special  reference  ought 
to  be  made,  viz.  the  part  he  took  in  promoting  the 
University  education  of  women.  In  or  about  the 
year  1868  he  joined  with  the  late  Miss  Anne 
Jane  Clough  (sister  of  the  poet  Arthur  Clough) 
and  a  few  other  friends  in  establishing  a  course 
of  lectures  and  a  hall  of  residence  for  women 
at  Cambridge,  which  grew  into  the  institution 
called  Newnham  College.  It  and  Girton  College, 
founded  by  other  friends  of  the  same  cause 


330  Biographical  Studies 

about  the  same  time,  were  the  two  first  insti¬ 
tutions  in  England  which  provided  for  women, 
together  with  residential  accommodation,  a  com¬ 
plete  University  training  equivalent  and  similar 
to  that  provided  by  the  two  ancient  English 
universities  for  men.  The  teaching  was  mainly 
given  by  the  University  professors  and  lecturers, 
the  curriculum  was  the  same  as  the  University 
prescribed,  and  the  women  students,  though  not 
legally  admitted  to  the  University,  were  ex¬ 
amined  by  the  University  examiners  at  the  same 
time  as  the  other  students.  Henry  Sidgwick 
was,  from  the  foundation  of  Newnham  onwards, 
the  moving  spirit  and  the  guiding  hand  among 
its  University  friends,  the  spirit  which  inspired 
the  policy  and  the  hand  which  piloted  the 
fortunes  of  the  College.  Its  growth  to  its  present 
dimensions,  and  its  usefulness,  not  only  directly, 
but  through  the  example  it  has  set,  have  been 
largely  due  to  his  assiduous  care  and  temperate 
wisdom.  He  had  married  (in  1876)  Miss  Eleanor 
Mildred  Balfour,  and  when  she  accepted  the  princi- 
palship  of  Newnham  after  Miss  Clough’s  death,  in 
1889,  he  and  she  transferred  their  residence  to 
the  College,  and  lived  thenceforward  at  it.  The 
England  of  our  time  has  seen  no  movement  of 
opinion  more  remarkable  or  more  beneficial  than 
that  which  has  recognised  the  claims  of  women 
to  the  highest  kind  of  education,  and  secured  a 
substantial,  if  still  incomplete,  provision  therefor. 


Henry  Sidgwick  331 

The  change  has  come  so  quietly  and  unob¬ 
trusively  that  few  people  realise  how  great  it 
is.  Few,  indeed,  remember  what  things  were 
forty  years  ago,  as  few  realise  when  waste  lands 
have  been  stubbed  and  drained  and  tilled  what 
they  were  like  in  their  former  state.  No  one  did 
more  than  Sidgwick  to  bring  about  this  change. 
Besides  his  work  for  Newnham,  he  took  a  lead 
in  all  the  movements  that  have  been  made  to 
obtain  for  women  a  fuller  admission  to  University 
privileges,  and  well  deserved  the  gratitude  of 
Englishwomen  for  his  unceasing  efforts  on  their 
behalf. 

The  obscure  problems  of  psychology  had  a 
great  attraction  for  him,  and  he  spent  much  time 
in  investigating  them,  being  one  of  the  founders, 
and  remaining  all  through  his  later  life  a  leading 
and  guiding  member,  of  the  Society  for  Psychical 
Research,  which  has  for  the  last  twenty  years 
cultivated  this  field  with  an  industry  and  ability 
which  have  deserved  larger  harvests  than  have 
yet  been  reaped.  Two  remarkable  men,  both 
devoted  friends  of  his,  worked  with  him,  Edmund 
Gurney  and  Frederic  Myers  the  poet,  the  latter 
of  whom  survived  him  a  few  months  only.  It 
was  characteristic  of  Sidgwick  that  he  never  com¬ 
mitted  himself  to  any  of  the  bold  and  possibly 
oversanguine  anticipations  formed  by  some  of 
the  other  members  of  the  Society,  while  yet  he 
never  was  deterred  by  failure,  or  by  the  discovery 


332  Biographical  Studies 

of  deceptions,  sometimes  elaborate  and  long  sus¬ 
tained,  from  pursuing  inquiries  which  seemed  to 
him  to  have  an  ultimate  promise  of  valuable 
results.  The  phenomena,  he  would  say,  may  be 
true  or  false ;  anyhow  they  deserve  investigation. 
The  mere  fact  that  so  many  persons  believe  them 
to  be  genuine  is  a  problem  fit  to  be  investigated. 
If  they  are  false,  it  will  be  a  service  to  have 
proved  them  so.  If  they  contain  some  truth, 
it  is  truth  of  a  kind  so  absolutely  new  as  to  be 
worth  much  effort  and  long  effort  to  reach  it.  In 
any  case,  science  ought  to  take  the  subject  out  of 
the  hands  of  charlatans. 

The  main  business  of  his  life,  however,  was 
teaching  and  writing.  Three  books  stand  out  as 
those  by  which  he  will  be  best  remembered  —  his 
Methods  of  Ethics ,  his  Principles  of  Political 
Economy ,  and  his  Elements  of  Politics.  All  three 
have  won  the  admiration  of  those  who  are  experts 
in  the  subjects  to  which  they  respectively  relate, 
and  they  continue  to  be  widely  read  in  uni¬ 
versities  both  in  Britain  and  in  America.  All 
three  bear  alike  the  peculiar  impress  of  his  mind. 

It  was  a  mind  of  singular  subtlety,  fertility, 
and  ingenuity,  which  applied  to  every  topic  an 
extremely  minute  and  patient  analysis.  Never 
satisfied  with  the  obvious  view  of  a  question, 
it  seemed  unable  to  acquiesce  in  any  broad  and 
sweeping  statement.  It  discovered  objections  to 
every  accepted  doctrine,  exceptions  to  every  rule. 


Henry  Sidgwick  333 

It  perceived  minute  distinctions  and  qualifications 
which  had  escaped  the  notice  of  previous  writers. 
These  qualities  made  Sidgwick’s  books  somewhat 
difficult  reading  for  a  beginner,  who  was  apt  to 
ask  what,  after  all,  was  the  conclusion  to  which  he 
had  been  led  by  an  author  who  showed  him  the 
subject  in  various  lights,  and  added  not  a  few  minor 
propositions  to  that  which  had  seemed  to  be  the 
governing  one.  But  the  student  who  had  already 
some  knowledge  of  the  topic,  who,  though  he 
apprehended  its  main  principles,  had  not  followed 
them  out  in  detail  or  perceived  the  difficulties  in 
applying  them,  gained  immensely  by  having  so 
many  fresh  points  presented  to  him,  so  many 
fallacies  lurking  in  currently  accepted  notions 
detected,  so  many  conditions  indicated  which 
might  qualify  the  amplitude  of  a  general  propo¬ 
sition.  The  method  of  discussion  was  stimu¬ 
lating.  Sometimes  it  reminded  one  of  the  Socratic 
method  as  it  appears  in  Plato,  but  more  fre¬ 
quently  it  was  the  method  of  Aristotle,  who 
discusses  a  subject  first  from  one  side,  then  from 
another,  throws  out  a  number  of  remarks,  not 
always  reconcilable,  but  always  suggestive,  re¬ 
garding  it,  and  finally  arrives  at  a  view  which  he 
delivers  as  being  probably  the  best,  but  one 
which  must  be  taken  subject  to  the  remarks 
previously  made.  The  reader  often  feels  in 
Sidgwick’s  treatment  of  a  subject  as  he  often 
feels  in  Aristotle’s,  that  he  would  like  to  be  left 


334  Biographical  Studies 

with  something  more  definite  and  positive,  some¬ 
thing  that  can  be  easily  delivered  to  learners  as 
an  established  truth.  He  desires  a  bolder  and 
broader  sweep  of  the  brush.  But  he  also  feels 
how  much  he  is  benefited  by  the  process  of 
sifting  and  analysing  to  which  every  conception 
or  dogma  is  subjected,  and  he  perceives  that 
he  is  more  able  to  handle  it  afterwards  in  his 
own  way  when  his  attention  has  been  called  to 
all  these  distinctions  and  qualifications  or  anti¬ 
nomies  which  would  have  escaped  any  vision  less 
keen  than  his  author’s.  For  those  who,  in  an  age 
prone  to  hasty  reading  and  careless  thinking,  are 
disposed  to  underrate  the  difficulties  of  economic 
and  political  questions,  and  to  walk  in  a  vain 
conceit  of  knowledge  because  they  have  picked 
up  some  large  generalisations,  no  better  discipline 
can  be  prescribed  than  to  follow  patiently  such 
a  treatment  as  Sidgwick  gives ;  nor  can  any 
reader  fail  to  profit  from  the  candour  and  the 
love  of  truth  which  illumine  his  discussion  of  a 
subject. 

The  love  of  truth  and  the  sense  of  duty  guided 
his  life  as  well  as  his  pen.  Though  always 
warmly  interested  in  politics,  he  was  of  all  the 
persons  I  have  known  the  least  disposed  to  be 
warped  by  partisanship,  for  he  examined  each 
political  issue  as  it  arose  on  its  own  merits,  apart 
from  predilections  for  either  party  or  for  the 
views  of  his  nearest  friends.  We  used  to  wonder 


Henry  Sidgwick  335 

how  such  splendid  impartiality  would  have  stood  a 
practical  test  such  as  that  of  the  House  of  Com¬ 
mons.  His  loyalty  to  civic  duty  was  so  strong  as 
on  one  occasion  to  bring  him,  in  the  middle  of 
his  vacation,  all  the  way  from  Davos,  in  the 
easternmost  corner  of  Switzerland,  to  Cambridge, 
solely  that  he  might  record  his  vote  at  a  parlia¬ 
mentary  election,  although  the  result  of  the  election 
was  already  virtually  certain. 

Sidgwick’s  attitude  toward  the  Benthamite 
system  of  Utilitarianism  illustrates  the  cautiously 
discriminative  habit  of  mind  I  have  sousrht  to 

O 

describe.  If  he  had  been  required  to  call  him¬ 
self  by  any  name,  he  would  not  have  refused  that 
of  Utilitarian,  just  as  in  mental  philosophy  he 
leaned  to  the  type  of  thought  represented  by  the 
two  Mills  rather  than  to  the  Kantian  idealism  of 
his  friend  and  school  contemporary,  the  Oxford 
professor  T.  H.  Green.  But  the  system  of 
Utility  takes  in  his  hands  a  form  so  much  more 
refined  and  delicate  than  was  given  to  it  by 
Bentham  and  James  Mill,  and  is  expounded  with 
so  many  qualifications  unknown  to  them,  that  it 
has  become  a  very  different  thing,  and  is  scarcely, 
if  at  all,  assailable  by  the  arguments  which  moral¬ 
ists  of  the  idealistic  type  have  brought  against 
the  older  doctrine.  Something  similar  may  be 
said  of  his  treatment  of  bimetallism  in  his  book 
on  political  economy.  While  assenting  to  some  of 
the  general  propositions  on  which  the  bimetallic 


336  Biographical  Studies 

theory  rests,  he  points  out  so  many  difficulties  in 
the  application  of  that  theory  to  the  actual  con¬ 
ditions  of  currency  that  his  assent  cannot  be  cited 
as  a  deliverance  in  favour  of  trying  to  turn  theory 
into  practice.  He  told  me  in  1896  that  he  held 
the  political  and  other  practical  objections  to  an 
attempt  to  establish  a  bimetallic  system  to  be  virtu¬ 
ally  insuperable.  When  he  treats  of  free  trade,  he 
is  no  less  guarded  and  discriminating.  He  points 
out  various  circumstances  or  conditions  under 
which  a  protective  tariff  may  become,  at  least 
for  a  time,  justifiable,  but  never  abandons  the 
free  trade  principle  as  being  generally  true  and 
sound,  a  principle  not  to  be  departed  from 
save  for  strong  reasons  of  a  local  or  temporary 
kind.  His  general  economic  position  is  equally 
removed  from  the  “  high  and  dry  ”  school  of 
Ricardo  on  the  one  hand,  and  from  the  “  Katheder- 
Sozialisten  ”  and  the  modern  “sentimental  ”  school 
on  the  other.  In  all  his  books  one  notes  a  ten¬ 
dency  to  discover  what  can  be  said  for  the  view 
which  is  in  popular  disfavour,  even  often  for 
that  which  he  does  not  himself  adopt,  and  to 
set  forth  all  the  objections  to  the  view  which 
is  to  receive  his  ultimate  adhesion.  There  is  a 
danger  with  such  a  method  of  losing  breadth  and 
force  of  effect.  One  is  ready  to  cry,  “  Do  lapse 
for  a  moment  into  dogmatism.”  Yet  it  ought  to  be 
added  that  Sidgwick’s  subtlety  is  always  restrained 
by  practical  good  sense,  as  well  as  by  the  desire  to 


Henry  Sidgwick  337 

reconcile  opposite  views.  His  arguments,  though 
they  often  turn  on  minute  distinctions,  are  not 
bits  of  fine-drawn  ingenuity,  but  have  weight  and 
substance  in  them.1 

One  book  of  his  which  has  not  yet  (December 
1902)  been  published,  but  which  I  have  had  the 
privilege  of  reading  in  proof,  displays  his  con¬ 
structive  power  in  another  light.  It  is  a  course 
of  lectures  on  the  development  of  political  institu¬ 
tions  in  Europe  from  early  times  down  to  our 
own.  Here,  as  he  is  dealing  with  concrete  matter, 
the  treatment  is  more  broad,  and  the  line  of  ex¬ 
position  and  argument  more  easy  to  follow,  than 
in  the  treatises  already  referred  to.  It  is  a  mas¬ 
terly  piece  of  work,  and  reveals  a  wider  range  of 
historical  knowledge  and  a  more  complete  mastery 
of  historical  method  than  had  been  shown  in  his 
earlier  books,  or  indeed  than  some  of  his  friends 
had  known  him  to  possess. 

The  tendency  to  analysis  rather  than  to  con¬ 
struction,  the  abstention  from  the  deliverance  of 
doctrines  easy  to  comprehend  and  repeat,  which 
belong  to  his  writings  on  ethics  and  economics, 
do  not  impair  the  worth  of  his  literary  criticisms. 
In  this  field  his  fine  perception  and  discriminative 

1  It  was  his  aim  to  avoid  as  much  as  possible  technical  terms  or  phrases 
whose  meaning  was  not  plain  to  the  average  reader.  An  anecdote  was 
current  that  once  when,  in  conducting  a  university  examination,  he  was 
perusing  the  papers  of  a  candidate  who  had  darkened  the  subject  by  the 
use  of  extreme  Hegelian  phraseology,  he  turned  to  his  co-examiner  and 
said,  “  I  can  see  that  this  is  nonsense,  but  is  it  the  right  kind  of  nonsense  ?  ” 


338  Biographical  Studies 

taste  had  full  scope.  He  was  an  incessant  reader, 
especially  of  poetry  and  novels,  with  a  retentive 
memory  for  poetry,  as  well  as  a  finely  modulated 
and  expressive  voice  in  reciting  it.  His  literary 
judgments  had  less  of  a  creative  quality,  if  the 
expression  be  permissible,  than  Matthew  Arnold’s, 
but  are  not  otherwise  inferior  to  those  of  that 
brilliant  though  sometimes  slightly  prejudiced 
critic.  No  one  of  his  contemporaries  has  sur¬ 
passed  Sidgwick  in  catholicity  and  reasonableness, 
in  the  power  of  delicate  appreciation,  or  in  an 
exquisite  precision  of  expression.  His  essay  on 
Arthur  Hugh  Clough,  prefixed  to  the  latest  edition 
of  Clough’s  collected  poems,  is  a  good  specimen 
of  this  side  of  his  talent.  Clough  was  one  of 
his  favourites,  and  has  indeed  been  called  the 
pet  poet  of  University  men.  Sidgwick’s  literary 
essays,  which  appeared  occasionally  in  magazines, 
were  few,  but  they  well  deserve  to  be  collected  and 
republished,  for  this  age  of  ours,  though  largely 
occupied  in  talking  about  literature,  has  produced 
comparatively  little  criticism  of  the  first  order. 

Sidgwick  did  not  write  swiftly  or  easily,  be¬ 
cause  he  weighed  carefully  everything  he  wrote. 
But  his  mind  was  alert  and  nimble  in  the  highest 
degree.  Thus  he  was  an  admirable  talker,  seeing 
in  a  moment  the  point  of  an  argument,  seizing  on 
distinctions  which  others  had  failed  to  perceive, 
suggesting  new  aspects  from  which  a  question 
might  be  regarded,  and  enlivening  every  topic 


339 


Henry  Sidgwick 

by  a  keen  yet  sweet  and  kindly  wit.  Wit, 
seldom  allowed  to  have  play  in  his  books, 
was  one  of  the  characteristics  which  made  his 
company  charming.  Its  effect  was  heightened 
by  a  hesitation  in  his  speech  which  often 
forced  him  to  pause  before  the  critical  word 
or  phrase  of  the  sentence  had  been  reached. 
When  that  word  or  phrase  came,  it  was  sure 
to  be  the  right  one.  Though  fond  of  arguing, 
he  was  so  candid  and  fair,  admitting  all  that 
there  was  in  his  opponent’s  case,  and  obviously 
trying  to  see  the  point  from  his  opponent’s  side, 
that  nobody  felt  annoyed  at  having  come  off 
second  best,  while  everybody  who  cared  for  good 
talk  went  away  feeling  not  only  that  he  knew 
more  about  the  matter  than  he  did  before,  but 
that  he  had  enjoyed  an  intellectual  pleasure  of  a 
rare  and  high  kind.  The  keenness  of  his  penetra¬ 
tion  was  not  formidable,  because  it  was  joined 
to  an  indulgent  judgment :  the  ceaseless  activity 
of  his  intellect  was  softened  rather  than  reduced 
by  the  gaiety  of  his  manner.  His  talk  was  con¬ 
versation,  not  discourse,  for  though  he  naturally 
became  the  centre  of  nearly  every  company  in 
which  he  found  himself,  he  took  no  more  than 
his  share.  It  was  like  the  sparkling  of  a  brook 
whose  ripples  seem  to  give  out  sunshine. 

Though  Sidgwick’s  writings  are  a  mine  of 
careful  and  suggestive  thinking,  he  was  even 
more  remarkable  than  his  books.  Though  his 


34°  Biographical  Studies 

conversation  was  delightful,  the  impression  of  its 
fertility  and  its  wit  were  the  least  part  of  the 
impression  which  his  personality  produced.  An 
eminent  man  is  known  to  the  world  at  large  by 
what  he  gives  them  in  the  way  of  instruction  or 
of  pleasure.  A  man  is  prized  and  remembered 
by  his  friends  for  what  he  was  in  the  intercourse 
of  life.  Few  men  of  our  time  have  influenced 
so  wide  or  so  devoted  a  circle  of  friends  as  did 
Henry  Sidgwick ;  few  could  respond  to  the  calls 
of  friendship  with  a  like  sympathy  or  wisdom. 
His  advice  was  frequently  asked  in  delicate 
questions  of  conduct,  and  he  was  humorously 
reminded  that,  by  his  own  capacity  as  well  as 
by  the  title  of  his  chair,  he  was  a  professor  of 
casuistry.  His  stores  of  knowledge  and  helpful 
criticism  were  always  at  the  service  of  his  pupils 
or  his  fellow-workers. 

From  his  earliest  college  days  he  had  been 
just,  well  balanced,  conscientious  alike  in  the  pur¬ 
suit  of  truth  and  in  the  regulation  of  his  own  life, 
appearing  to  have  neither  prejudices  nor  enmities, 
and  when  he  had  to  convey  censure,  choosing  the 
least  cutting  words  in  which  to  convey  it.  Yet 
in  earlier  years  there  had  been  in  him  a  touch 
of  austerity,  a  certain  remoteness  or  air  of  de¬ 
tachment,  which  confined  to  a  very  few  persons 
the  knowledge  of  his  highest  qualities.  As  he 
grew  older  his  purity  lost  its  coldness,  his  keen¬ 
ness  of  discernment  mellowed  into  a  sweet  and 


34i 


Henry  Sidgwick 

persuasive  wisdom.  A  life  excellently  conducted, 
a  life  which  is  the  expression  of  fine  qualities,  and 
in  which  the  acts  done  are  in  harmony  with  the 
thoughts  and  words  of  the  man,  is  itself  a  beauti¬ 
ful  product,  whether  of  untutored  nature  or  of 
thought  and  experience  turning  every  faculty  to 
the  best  account.  In  the  modern  world  the  two 
types  of  excellence  which  we  are  chiefly  bidden 
to  admire  are  that  of  the  active  philanthropist 
and  that  of  the  saint.  The  ancient  world  produced 
and  admired  another  type,  to  which  some  of  its 
noblest  characters  conformed,  and  which,  in  its 
softer  and  more  benignant  aspect,  Sidgwick 
presented.  In  his  indifference  to  wealth  and 
fame  and  the  other  familiar  objects  of  human 
desire,  in  the  almost  ascetic  simplicity  of  his  daily 
life,  in  his  pursuit  of  none  but  the  purest  pleasures, 
in  his  habit  of  subjecting  all  impulses  to  the  law 
of  reason,  the  will  braced  to  patience,  the  soul 
brought  into  harmony  with  the  divinely  appointed 
order,  he  seemed  to  reproduce  one  of  those  phil¬ 
osophers  of  antiquity  who  formed  a  lofty  concep¬ 
tion  of  Nature  and  sought  to  live  in  conformity 
with  her  precepts.  But  the  gravity  of  a  Stoic 
was  relieved  by  the  humour  and  vivacity  which 
belonged  to  his  nature,  and  the  severity  of  a  Stoic 
was  softened  by  the  tenderness  and  sympathy 
which  seemed  to  grow  and  expand  with  every 
year.  In  Cambridge,  where,  though  the  society 
is  a  large  one,  all  the  teachers  become  personally 


342  Biographical  Studies 

known  to  one  another,  and  the  students  have 
opportunities  of  familiar  intercourse  with  the 
teachers,  affection  as  well  as  admiration  gathered 
round  him.  His  thoughts  quickened  and  his 
example  inspired  generation  after  generation  of 
young  men  passing  through  the  University  out 
into  the  life  of  England,  as  a  light  set  high  upon 
the  bank  beams  on  the  waves  of  a  river  gliding 
swiftly  to  the  sea. 

It  was  a  life  of  single-minded  devotion  to  truth 
and  friendship,  a  life  serene  and  gentle,  free  alike 
from  vanity  and  from  ambition,  bearing  without 
complaint  the  ill-health  which  sometimes  checked 
his  labours,  viewing  with  calm  fortitude  those 
problems  of  man’s  life  on  which  his  mind  was 
always  fixed,  untroubled  in  the  presence  of  death. 

Felix  qui  potuit  rerum  cognoscere  causas 
Quique  metus  omnes  et  inexorabile  fatum 
Subiecit  pedibus  strepitumque  Acherontis  avari. 

When  his  friends  heard  of  his  departure  there 
rose  to  mind  the  words  in  which  the  closing  scene 
of  the  life  of  Socrates  is  described  by  the  greatest 
of  his  disciples,  and  we  thought  that  among  all 
those  we  had  known  there  was  none  of  whom  we 
could  more  truly  say  that  in  him  the  spirit  of 
philosophy  had  its  perfect  work  in  justice,  in 
goodness,  and  in  wisdom. 


EDWARD  ERNEST  BOWEN1 


Ever  since  the  publication  of  Stanley’s  Life  of 
Dr.  Arnold  that  eminent  head-master  has  been 
taken  as  the  model  of  a  great  teacher  and  ruler  of 
boys,  the  man  who,  while  stimulating  the  intel¬ 
ligence  of  his  pupils,  was  even  more  concerned 
to  discipline  and  mould  their  moral  natures. 
Arnold  has  become  the  type  of  what  Carlyle 
might  have  called  “  The  Hero  as  Schoolmaster.” 
Though  there  have  been  many  able  men  at  the 
head  of  large  schools  since  his  time,  including 
three  who  afterwards  rose  to  be  Archbishops  of 
Canterbury,  as  well  as  a  good  many  who  have 
become  bishops,  his  fame  remains  unrivalled,  and 
the  type  created  by  his  career,  or  rather  perhaps  by 
his  biographer’s  account  of  it,  still  holds  the  field. 
Moreover,  during  the  sixty  years  that  have  passed 
since  Arnold’s  death  scarcely  a  word  has  been 
said  regarding  any  other  masters  than  the  head. 
During  those  years  the  English  universities  have 
sent  into  the  great  schools  a  large  proportion  of 

1  Since  this  sketch  was  written  a  very  interesting  Life  of  Edward 
Bowen  by  his  nephew  (the  Hon.  and  Rev.  W.  E.  Bowen)  has  appeared. 
Some  of  his  (too  few)  essays  and  a  collection  of  his  school-songs  are 
appended  to  it. 


343 


344  Biographical  Studies 

their  most  capable  graduates  as  assistant  teachers  ; 
and  some  of  the  strongest  men  among  these 
graduates  have  never,  from  various  causes,  and 
often  because  they  preferred  to  remain  laymen, 
been  raised  to  the  headships  of  the  schools. 
Every  one  knows  that  a  school  depends  for  its 
wellbeing  and  success  more  largely  on  the  assist¬ 
ants  taken  together  than  it  does  on  the  head¬ 
master.  Most  people  also  know  that  individual 
assistant  masters  are  not  unfrequently  better 
scholars,  better  teachers,  and  more  influential 
with  the  boys  than  is  their  official  superior.  Yet 
the  assistant  masters  have  remained  unhonoured 
and  unsung  in  the  general  chorus  of  praise  of 
the  great  schools  which  has  been  resounding 
over  England  for  nearly  two  generations. 

Edward  Bowen  was  all  his  life  an  assistant  mas¬ 
ter,  and  never  cared  to  be  anything  else.  As  he 
had  determined  not  to  take  orders  in  the  Church 
of  England,  he  was  virtually  debarred  from  many 
of  the  chief  head-masterships,  which  are,  some 
few  of  them  by  law,  many  more  by  custom,  con¬ 
fined  to  Anglican  clergymen.  But  even  when  other 
headships  to  which  this  condition  was  not  attached 
were  known  to  be  practically  open  to  his  accept¬ 
ance,  were,  indeed,  in  one  or  two  instances  almost 
tendered  to  him,  he  refused  to  become  a  candidate, 
preferring  his  own  simple  and  easy  way  of  life 
to  the  pomp  and  circumstance  which  convention 
requires  a  head-master  to  maintain.  This  ab- 


Edward  Bowen 


345 


stention,  however,  did  not  prevent  his  eminence 
from  becoming  known  to  those  who  had  oppor¬ 
tunities  of  judging.  In  his  later  years  he  would, 
I  think,  have  been  generally  recognised  by  the 
teaching  profession  as  the  most  brilliant,  and  in 
his  own  peculiar  line  the  most  successful,  man 
among  the  schoolmasters  of  Britain. 

He  was  born  on  March  30,  1836,  of  an  Irish 
family  (originally  from  Wales)  holding  property 
in  the  county  of  Mayo.  His  father  was  a  clergy¬ 
man  of  the  Church  of  England ;  his  mother, 
who  survived  him  a  few  months  (dying  at  the 
age  of  ninety-four)  and  whom  he  tended  with 
watchful  care  during  her  years  of  widowhood, 
was  partly  of  Irish,  partly  of  French  extraction. 
Like  his  more  famous  but  perhaps  not  more 
remarkable  elder  brother,  Charles  Bowen,  who 
became  Lord  Bowen,  and  is  remembered  as 
one  of  the  most  acute  and  subtle  judges  as 
well  as  one  of  the  most  winning  personalities 
of  our  time,  he  had  a  gaiety,  wit,  and  versatility 
which  suggested  the  presence  of  Celtic  blood. 
He  was  educated  at  Blackheath  School,  and 
afterwards  at  King’s  College  in  London,  whence 
he  proceeded  to  Trinity  College,  Cambridge. 
In  i860,  after  a  career  at  the  University,  dis¬ 
tinguished  both  in  the  way  of  honours  and  in 
respect  of  the  reputation  he  won  among  his 
contemporaries,  he  became  a  master  at  Harrow, 
and  thenceforth  remained  there,  leading  an 


346  Biographical  Studies 

uneventful  and  externally  a  monotonous  life, 
but  one  full  of  unceasing  and  untiring  activity 
in  play  and  work.  He  died  on  Easter  Monday 
1901. 

Nothing  could  be  less  like  the  traditional 
Arnoldine  methods  of  teaching  and  ruling  boys 
than  Bowen’s  method  was.  The  note  of  those 
methods  was  what  used  to  be  called  moral 
earnestness.  Arnold  was  grave  and  serious, 
distant  and  awe-inspiring,  except  perhaps  to  a 
few  specially  favoured  pupils.  Bowen  was  light, 
cheerful,  vivacious,  humorous,  familiar,  and,  above 
all  things,  ingenious  and  full  of  variety.  His 
leading  principles  were  two  —  that  the  boy  must 
at  all  hazards  be  interested  in  the  lessons  and 
that  he  should  be  at  ease  with  the  teacher. 

A  Harrow  boy  once  said  to  his  master, 
“  I  don’t  know  how  it  is,  sir,  but  if  Mr.  Bowen 
takes  a  lesson  he  makes  you  work  twice  as  hard 
as  other  masters,  but  you  like  it  twice  as  much 
and  you  learn  far  more.”  He  was  the  most 
unexpected  man  in  conversation  that  could  be 
imagined,  always  giving  a  new  turn  to  talk  by 
saying  something  that  seemed  remote  from  the 
matter  in  hand  until  he  presently  showed  the 
connection.  So  his  teaching  kept  the  boys 
alert,  because  its  variety  was  inexhaustible.  He 
seemed  to  think  that  it  did  not  greatly  matter 
what  the  lesson  was  so  long  as  the  pupil  could  be 
got  to  enjoy  it.  The  rules  of  the  school  and  the 


Edward  Bowen 


347 


requirements  of  the  examinations  for  which  boys 
had  to  be  prepared  would  not  have  permitted 
him  to  try  to  any  great  extent  the  experiment 
of  varying  subjects  to  suit  individual  tastes ;  but 
he  was  fond  of  giving  lessons  in  topics  outside 
the  regular  course,  on  astronomy  for  instance,  of 
which  he  had  acquired  a  fair  knowledge,  and  on 
recent  military  history,  which  he  knew  wonderfully 
well,  better  probably  than  any  man  in  England  out¬ 
side  the  military  profession.  When  the  so-called 
“  modern  side  ”  was  established  at  Harrow,  in  1869, 
he  became  head  of  it,  having  taken  this  post,  not 
from  any  want  of  classical  taste  and  learning, 
for  he  was  an  admirable  scholar,  and  to  the 
end  of  his  life  wrote  charming  Latin  verses,  but 
because  he  felt  that  this  line  of  teaching  needed 
to  be  developed  in  a  school  which  had  been  for¬ 
merly  almost  wholly  classical.  For  grammatical 
minutiae,  for  learning  rules  by  heart,  and  indeed 
for  the  old  style  of  grammar-teaching  generally, 
he  had  an  unconcealed  contempt.  He  thought  it 
unkind  and  wasteful  to  let  a  boy  go  on  puzzling 
over  difficulties  of  language  in  an  author,  and 
permitted,  under  restrictions,  the  use  of  English 
translations,  or  (as  boys  call  them)  “  cribs.” 
Teaching  was  in  his  view  a  special  gift  of 
the  individual,  which  depended  on  the  aptitude 
for  getting  hold  of  the  pupil’s  mind,  and 
enlisting  his  interest  in  the  subject.  He 
had  accordingly  no  faith  in  the  doctrine  that 


348  Biographical  Studies 

teaching  is  a  science  which  can  be  systematically 
studied,  or  an  art  in  which  the  apprentice  ought  to 
be  systematically  trained.  When  he  was  sum¬ 
moned  as  a  witness  before  the  Secondary  Educa¬ 
tion  Commission  in  1894  he  adhered,  under  cross- 
examination,  to  this  view  (so  far  as  it  affected 
schools  like  Harrow  or  Eton),  refusing  to  be 
moved  by  the  arguments  of  those  among  the 
Commissioners  who  cited  the  practice  of  Germany, 
where  Padagogik,  as  they  call  it,  is  elaborately 
taught  in  the  universities.  “  I  am  unable,”  he  said, 
“  to  conceive  any  machinery  by  which  the  art  of 
teaching  can  be  given  practically  to  masters.  That 
art  is  so  much  a  matter  of  personal  power  and  ex¬ 
perience,  and  of  various  social  and  moral  gifts, 
that  I  cannot  conceive  a  good  person  made  a  good 
master  by  merely  seeing  a  class  of  boys  taught, 
unless  he  was  allowed  to  take  a  real  and  serious 
part  in  it  himself,  unless  he  became  a  teacher  him¬ 
self.  I  can  understand  that  at  a  primary  school  you 
can  learn  by  going  in  and  hearing  a  good  teacher  at 
work ;  but  the  teaching  of  a  class  of  older  boys  is 
so  different,  and  has  so  much  of  the  social  element 
in  it,  and  it  may  vary  so  much  that  I  should 
despair  of  teaching  a  young  man  how  to  take  a 
class  unless  he  was  a  long  time  with  me.  ...  A 
master  at  a  large  public  school  is  chiefly  a  moral 
and  social  force ;  a  master  is  this  to  a  much  less 
extent  at  a  primary  school  or  in  the  ordinary  day- 
schools,  the  grammar-schools  of  the  country.  To 


Edward  Bowen 


349 


deal  with  boys  when  you  have  them  completely 
under  your  control  for  the  whole  of  every  day  is 
an  altogether  different  thing,  and  requires  different 
virtues  in  the  teacher  from  those  that  are  required 
in  the  case  of  day-schools.” 

Bowen  may  possibly  have  been  mistaken,  even 
as  regards  the  teachers  in  the  great  public  board¬ 
ing  schools.  His  view  seems  to  overlook  or 
disregard  that  large  class  of  persons  who  have  no 
marked  natural  aptitude  for  teaching,  but  are  capa¬ 
ble  of  being,  by  special  instruction  and  supervised 
practice,  kneaded  and  moulded  into  better  teachers 
than  they  would  otherwise  have  grown  to  be.  He 
felt  so  strongly  that  no  one  ought  to  teach  without 
having  a  real  gift  and  fondness  for  teaching  that 
he  thought  such  difference  as  training  could  make 
insignificant  in  comparison  with  the  inborn  talent. 
Perhaps  he  generalised  too  boldly  from  himself, 
for  he  had  an  enjoyment  of  his  work,  and  a  con¬ 
scientiousness  in  always  putting  the  very  best  of 
himself  into  it —  how  much  was  conscientiousness 
and  how  much  was  enjoyment,  no  one  could  tell 
—  as  well  as  a  quickness  and  vivacity  which  no 
study  of  methods  could  have  improved.  As  one 
of  his  most  eminent  colleagues,1  who  was  also  his 
life-long  friend,  observes :  “  The  humdrum  and 
routine  which  must  form  so  large  a  part  of  a 
teacher’ s  life  were  never  humdrum  or  routine  to 
him,  for  he  put  the  whole  of  his  abounding 


1  Mr.  R.  Bosworth  Smith. 


350  Biographical  Studies 

energies  into  his  work,  and  round  its  dryest  details 
there  played  and  flickered,  as  with  a  lambent 
flame,  his  joyous  spirit,  finding  expression  now 
perhaps  in  a  striking  parallel,  now  in  a  startling 
paradox,  now  in  a  touch  of  humour,  and  once 
again  in  a  note  of  pathos.” 

The  personal  influence  he  exerted  on  the  boys 
who  lived  in  his  House  was  quite  as  remarkable 
as  his  “  form-teaching.”  Stoicism  and  honour 
were  the  qualities  it  was  mainly  directed  to  form. 
Every  boy  was  expected  to  show  manliness  and 
endurance,  and  to  utter  no  complaint.  Where 
physical  health  was  concerned  he  was  indulgent; 
his  House  was  the  first  which  gave  the  boys  meat 
at  breakfast  in  addition  to  tea  with  bread  and 
butter.  But  otherwise  the  discipline  was  Spartan, 
though  not  more  Spartan  than  that  he  prescribed 
to  himself,  and  the  House  was  trained  to  scorn  the 
slightest  approach  to  luxury.  Arm-chairs  were 
forbidden  except  to  sixth  form  boys.  A  pupil 
relates  that  when  Bowen  found  he  was  in  the  habit 
of  taking  two  hot  baths  a  week  the  transgression 
was  reproved  with  the  words :  “  Oh  boy,  that’s 
like  the  later  Romans,  boy.”  His  maxims  were: 
“  Take  sweet  and  bitter  as  sweet  and  bitter  come.” 
and  “  Always  play  the  game.”  He  never  preached 
to  the  boys  or  lectured  them  ;  and  if  he  had  to 
convey  a  reproof,  conveyed  it  in  a  single  sentence. 
But  he  dwelt  upon  honour  as  the  foundation  of 
character,  and  made  every  boy  feel  that  he  was 


Edward  Bowen  351 

expected  to  reach  the  highest  standard  of  truth¬ 
fulness,  courage,  and  duty  to  the  little  community 
of  the  House,  or  the  cricket  eleven,  or  the  foot¬ 
ball  team. 

Some  have  begun  to  think  that  in  English 
schools  and  universities  too  much  time  is  given  to 
athletic  sports,  and  that  they  absorb  too  largely 
the  thoughts  and  interests  of  the  English  youth. 
Bowen,  however,  attached  the  utmost  value  to 
games  as  a  training  in  character.  He  used  to 
descant  upon  the  qualities  of  discipline,  good 
fellowship,  good-humour,  mutual  help,  and  post¬ 
ponement  of  self  which  they  are  calculated  to 
foster.  Though  some  of  his  friends  thought  that 
his  own  intense  and  unabated  fondness  for  these 
games  —  for  he  played  cricket  and  football  up  to 
the  end  of  his  life  —  might  have  biassed  his  judg¬ 
ment,  they  could  not  deny  that  the  games  ought 
to  develop  the  qualities  aforesaid. 

“  Consider  the  habit  of  being  in  public,  the  for¬ 
bearance,  the  subordination  of  the  one  to  the  many, 
the  exercise  of  judgment,  the  sense  of  personal  dig¬ 
nity.  Think  again  of  the  organising  faculty  that 
our  games  develop.  Where  can  you  get  command 
and  obedience,  choice  with  responsibility,  criticism 
with  discipline,  in  any  degree  remotely  approach¬ 
ing  that  in  which  our  social  games  supply  them  ? 
Think  of  the  partly  moral,  partly  physical  side  of  it, 
temper,  of  course,  dignity,  courtesy.  .  .  .  When  the 
match  has  really  begun,  there  is  education,  there 


352  Biographical  Studies 

is  enlargement  of  horizon,  self  sinks,  the  common 
good  is  the  only  good,  the  bodily  faculties  ex¬ 
hilarate  in  functional  development,  and  the  make- 
believe  ambition  is  glorified  into  a  sort  of  ideality. 
Here  is  boyhood  at  its  best,  or  very  nearly  at  its 
best.  Sursum  crura  !  .  .  .  When  you  have  a 
lot  of  human  beings,  in  highest  social  union  and 
perfect  organic  action,  developing  the  law  of  their 
race  and  falling  in  unconsciously  with  its  best 
inherited  traditions  of  brotherhood  and  common 
action,  you  are  not  far  from  getting  a  glimpse  of 
one  side  of  the  highest  good.  There  lives  more 
soul  in  honest  play,  believe  me,  than  in  half  the 
hymn-books.” 

These  words,  taken  from  a  half-serious  essay  on 
Games  written  for  a  private  society,  give  some  part 
of  Bowen’s  views.  The  whole  essay  is  well  worth 
reading.1  Its  arguments  do  not,  however,  quite 
settle  the  matter.  The  playing  of  games  may  have, 
and  indeed  ought  to  have,  the  excellent  results 
Bowen  claimed  for  it,  and  yet  it  may  be  doubted 
whether  the  experience  of  life  shows  that  boys  so 
brought  up  do  in  fact  turn  out  substantially  more 
good-humoured,  unselfish,  and  fit  for  the  commerce 
of  the  world  than  others  who  have  lacked  this  train¬ 
ing.  And  the  further  question  remains  whether  the 
games  are  worth  their  costly  candle.  That  they 
occupy  a  good  deal  of  time  at  school  and  at  college 
is  not  necessarily  an  evil,  seeing  that  the  time  left 

1  It  is  printed  in  the  Life. 


Edward  Bowen  353 

for  lessons  or  study  is  sufficient  if  well  spent. 
The  real  drawback  incident  to  the  excessive 
devotion  games  inspire  in  our  days  is  that  they 
leave  little  room  in  the  boy’s  or  collegian’s  mind 
either  for  interest  in  his  studies  or  for  the  love 
of  nature.  They  fill  his  thoughts,  they  divert  his 
ambition  into  channels  of  no  permanent  value 
to  his  mind  or  life ;  they  continue  to  absorb  his 
interest  and  form  a  large  part  of  his  reading  long 
after  he  has  left  school  or  college.  Neverthe¬ 
less,  be  these  things  as  they  may,  the  opinion 
of  a  man  so  able  and  so  experienced  as  Bowen 
was  deserves  to  be  recorded ;  and  his  success  in 
endearing  himself  to  and  guiding  his  boys  was 
doubtless  partly  due  to  the  use  he  made  of  their 
liking  for  games. 

He  was  never  married,  so  the  school  became 
the  sole  devotion  of  his  life,  and  he  bequeathed  to 
it  the  bulk  of  his  property,  directing  an  area  of 
land  which  he  had  purchased  on  the  top  of  the 
Hill  to  be  always  kept  as  an  open  space  for  the 
benefit  of  boys  and  masters. 

It  need  hardly  be  said  that  he  loved  boys  as 
he  loved  teaching.  He  took  them  with  him  in 
the  holidays  on  walking  tours.  He  kept  up  cor¬ 
respondence  with  many  of  his  pupils  after  they 
left  Harrow,  and  advised  them  as  occasion  rose. 
To  many  of  them  he  remained  through  life  the 
model  whom  they  desired  to  imitate.  But  he 
was  very  chary  of  the  exercise  of  influence.  “  A 


354  Biographical  Studies 

boy’s  character,”  he  once  wrote,  “grows  like  the 
Temple  of  old,  without  sound  of  mallet  and 
trowel.  What  we  can  do  is  to  arrange  matters 
so  as  to  give  Virtue  her  best  chance.  We  can 
make  the  right  choice  sometimes  a  little  easier, 
we  can  prevent  tendencies  from  blossoming  into 
acts,  and  render  pitfalls  visible.  How  much  in¬ 
directly  and  unconsciously  we  can  do,  none  but 
the  recording  angel  knows.  ‘You  can  and  you 
should,’  said  Chiffers,1  ‘  go  straight  to  the  heart  of 
every  individual  boy.’  Well,  a  fellow-creature’s 
mind  is  a  sacred  thing.  You  may  enter  into  that 
arcanum  once  a  year,  shoeless.  And  in  the  effort 
to  control  the  spirit  of  a  pupil,  to  make  one’s  own 
approval  his  test  and  mould  him  by  the  stress 
of  our  own  presence,  in  the  ambition  to  do  this, 
the  craving  for  moral  power  and  visible  guiding, 
the  subtle  pride  of  effective  agency,  lie  some  of  the 
chief  temptations  of  a  schoolmaster’s  work.” 

Such  ways  and  methods  as  I  have  endeavoured 
to  describe  are  less  easy  to  imitate  than  those 
which  belong  to  the  Arnoldine  type  of  school¬ 
master.  In  Bowen’s  gaiety,  in  his  vivacity,  in  the 
humour  which  interpenetrated  everything  he  said 
or  did,  there  was  something  individual.  Teachers 
who  do  not  possess  a  like  vivacity,  versatility,  and 
humour  cannot  hope  to  apply  with  like  success 
the  method  of  familiarity  and  sympathy.  Not 
indeed  that  Bowen  stood  altogether  alone  in  his 


1  “  Chiffers  ”  is  the  typical  would-be  imitator  of  Arnold. 


Edward  Bowen 


355 


use  of  that  method.  There  were  others  among 
his  contemporaries  who  shared  his  view,  and  whose 
practice  was  not  dissimilar.  He  was,  however,  the 
earliest  and  most  brilliant  exponent  of  the  view, 
so  his  career  may  be  said  to  open  a  new  line,  and 
to  mark  a  new  departure  in  the  teacher’s  art. 

I  have  mentioned  his  walking  tours.  He 
was  a  pedestrian  of  extraordinary  force,  rather 
tall,  but  spare  and  light,  swift  of  foot,  and  tire¬ 
less  in  his  activity.  As  an  undergraduate  he 
had  walked  from  Cambridge  to  Oxford,  nearly 
ninety  miles,  in  twenty-four  hours,  scarcely  halt¬ 
ing.  At  one  time  or  another  he  had  traversed 
on  foot  all  the  coast-line  and  great  part  of  the 
inland  regions  of  England.  He  was  an  accom¬ 
plished  Alpine  climber.  His  passion  for  exercise 
of  body  as  well  as  of  mind  was  so  salient  a 
feature  in  his  character  that  his  friends  wondered 
how  he  would  be  able  to  support  old  age.  He 
was  spared  the  trial,  for  he  was  gay  and  joyous  as 
ever  on  the  last  morning  of  his  life,  and  he  died 
in  a  moment,  while  mounting  his  bicycle  after  a 
long  ascent,  among  the  lonely  forests  of  Burgundy, 
then  bursting  into  leaf  under  an  April  sun. 

His  interest  in  politics  provided  him  with 
a  short  and  strenuous  interlude  of  public  action, 
which  varied  the  even  tenor  of  his  life  at  Harrow. 
At  the  general  election  of  1880  he  stood  as  a 
candidate  for  the  little  borough  of  Hertford  (which 
has  since  been  merged  in  the  county)  against  Mr. 


356  Biographical  Studies 

Arthur  Balfour,  now  (1902)  First  Lord  of  the 
Treasury  in  England.  The  pro-Turkish  policy 
of  Lord  Beaconsfield,  followed  by  the  Afghan 
War  of  1878,  had  roused  many  Liberals  who 
usually  took  little  part  in  political  action.  Bowen 
felt  the  impulse  to  denounce  the  conduct  of  the 
Ministry,  and  went  into  the  contest  with  his  usual 
airy  suddenness.  He  had  little  prospect  of  suc¬ 
cess  at  such  a  place,  for,  like  many  of  the  so-called 
Academic  Liberals  of  those  days,  he  made  the 
mistake  of  standing  for  a  small  semi-rural  con¬ 
stituency,  overshadowed  by  a  neighbouring  mag¬ 
nate,  instead  of  for  a  large  town,  where  both  his 
opinions  and  his  oratory  would  have  been  better 
appreciated.  However,  he  enjoyed  the  contest 
thoroughly,  amusing  himself  as  well  as  the  electors 
by  his  lively  and  sometimes  impassioned  speeches, 
and  he  looked  back  to  it  as  a  pleasant  episode  in 
his  usually  smooth  and  placid  life.  He  was  all  his 
life  a  strong  Liberal  vieille  roche ,  a  lover  of  free¬ 
dom  and  equality  as  well  as  of  economy  in  public 
finance,  a  Free  Trader,  an  individualist,  an  enemy 
of  all  wars  and  all  aggressions,  and  in  later  years 
growingly  indignant  at  the  rapid  increase  of 
military  and  naval  expenditure.  He  was  also, 
like  the  Liberals  of  1850-60  in  general,  a  sym¬ 
pathiser  with  oppressed  nationalities,  though  this 
feeling  did  not  carry  him  the  length  of  accept¬ 
ing  the  policy  of  Home  Rule  for  Ireland,  as 
to  which  he  had  grave  doubts,  yet  doubts  not 


Edward  Bowen 


357 


quite  so  serious  as  to  involve  his  separation  from 
the  Liberal  party.  Twice  after  1880  he  was  on 
the  point  of  becoming  a  candidate  for  a  seat  in  the 
House  of  Commons,  but  whether  his  love  for  Har¬ 
row  would  have  suffered  him  to  remain  in  Parlia¬ 
ment  had  he  entered  it  may  be  doubted.  One 
could  not  even  tell  whether  he  was  really  disap¬ 
pointed  that  his  political  aspirations  remained  un¬ 
fulfilled.  Had  he  given  himself  to  parliamentary 
life,  his  readiness,  ingenuity,  and  wit  would  have 
soon  made  him  valued  by  his  own  side,  while  his 
sincerity  and  engaging  manners  would  have  com¬ 
mended  him  to  both  sides  alike.  His  delivery  was 
always  too  rapid,  and  his  voice  not  powerful,  yet 
these  defects  would  have  been  forgotten  in  the  in¬ 
terest  which  so  peculiar  a  figure  must  have  aroused. 

His  peace  principles  contrasted  oddly  with 
his  passion  for  military  history,  a  passion  which 
prompted  many  vacation  journeys  to  battle-fields 
all  over  Europe,  from  Salamanca  to  Austerlitz. 
He  had  followed  the  campaigns  of  Napoleon 
through  Piedmont  and  Lombardy,  through  Ger¬ 
many  and  Austria,  as  well  as  those  of  Wellington 
in  Spain  and  Southern  France.1  This  taste  is 
not  uncommon  in  men  of  peace.  Freeman  had 
it;  J.  R.  Green  and  S.  R.  Gardiner  had  it;  and 
the  historical  works  of  Sir  George  Trevelyan 
and  Dr.  Thomas  Hodgkin  prove  that  it  lives 
in  those  genial  breasts  also.  It  was  a  pleasure 


1  He  remarked  once  that  he  had  so  nearly  exhausted  the  battle-fields  of 
the  past  that  he  must  begin  to  devote  himself  to  the  battle-fields  of  the  future. 


35 8  Biographical  Studies 

to  be  led  over  a  battle-field  by  Bowen,  for  he  had 
a  good  eye  for  ground,  he  knew  the  movements 
of  the  armies  down  to  the  smallest  detail,  and  he 
could  explain  with  perfect  lucidity  the  positions 
of  the  combatants  and  the  tactical  moves  in  the 
game. 

Twice  only  did  he  come  across  actual  fighting, 
once  at  Diippel  in  1864,  during  the  Schleswig- 
Holstein  war,  and  again  in  Paris  during  the  siege 
of  the  Communards  by  the  forces  that  obeyed 
Thiers  and  the  Assembly  sitting  at  Versailles. 
He  maintained  that  the  Commune  had  been  un¬ 
fairly  judged  by  Englishmen,  and  wrote  a  singu¬ 
larly  interesting  description  of  what  he  saw  while 
risking  his  life  in  the  beleaguered  city.  There 
was  in  him  a  great  spirit  of  adventure,  though  the 
circumstances  of  his  life  gave  it  little  scope. 

Travel  was  one  of  his  chief  pleasures,  but  it 
was,  if  possible,  a  still  greater  pleasure  to  his 
fellow-travellers,  for  he  was  the  most  agreeable 
of  companions,  fertile  in  suggestion,  candid  in 
discussion,  swift  in  decision.  He  cared  nothing 
for  luxury  and  very  little  for  comfort ;  he  was 
absolutely  unselfish  and  imperturbably  good- 
humoured  ;  he  could  get  enjoyment  out  of  the 
smallest  incidents  of  travel,  and  his  curiosity  to 
see  the  surface  of  the  earth  as  well  as  the  cities 
of  men  was  inexhaustible.  He  loved  the  un¬ 
expected,  and  if  one  had  written  proposing  an 
expedition  to  explore  Tibet,  he  would  have 


Edward  Bowen  359 

telegraphed  back,  “  Start  to-night :  do  we  meet 
Charing  Cross  or  Victoria  ?  ” 

I  have  dwelt  on  Bowen’s  gifts  and  methods 
as  a  teacher,  because  teaching  was  the  joy  and 
the  business  of  his  life,  and  because  he  showed 
a  new  way  in  which  boys  might  be  stimulated 
and  guided.  But  he  was  a  great  deal  besides 
a  teacher,  just  as  his  brother  Charles  was  a 
great  deal  besides  a  lawyer.  Both  had  talents 
for  literature  of  a  very  high  order.  Charles 
published  a  verse  translation  of  Virgil’s  Eclogues 
and  the  first  six  books  of  the  EEneid,  full  of 
ingenuity  and  refinement,  as  well  as  of  fine  poetic 
taste.  Edward’s  vein  expressed  itself  in  the 
writing  of  songs.  His  school  songs,  composed 
for  the  Harrow  boys,  became  immensely  popu¬ 
lar  with  them,  and  their  use  at  school  celebra¬ 
tions  of  various  kinds  has  passed  from  Harrow 
to  the  other  great  schools  of  England,  even 
to  some  of  the  larger  girls’  schools.  The 
songs  are  unique  in  their  fanciful  ingenuity  and 
humorous  extravagance,  full  of  a  boyish  joy  in 
life,  in  the  exertion  of  physical  strength,  in  the 
mimic  strife  of  games,  yet  with  an  occasional 
touch  of  sadness,  like  the  shadow  of  a  passing 
cloud  as  it  falls  on  the  cricket  field  over  which 
the  shouts  of  the  players  are  ringing.  The  metres 
are  various :  all  show  rhythmical  skill,  and  in  all 
the  verse  has  a  swing  which  makes  it  singularly 
effective  when  sung  by  a  mass  of  voices.  Most 


360  Biographical  Studies 

of  the  songs  are  dedicated  to  cricket  or  football, 
but  a  few  are  serious,  and  two  or  three  of  these 
have  a  beauty  of  thought  and  perfection  of  form 
which  make  the  reader  ask  why  a  poetic  gift  so 
true  and  so  delicate  should  have  been  rarely  used. 
These  songs  were  the  work  of  his  middle  or  later 
years,  and  he  never  wrote  except  when  the  im¬ 
pulse  came  upon  him.  The  stream  ran  pure  but 
it  ran  seldom.  In  early  days  he  had  been  for  a 
while,  like  many  other  brilliant  young  University 
men  of  his  time,  a  contributor  to  the  Saturday 
Review.  (There  surely  never  was  a  journal  which 
enlisted  so  much  and  such  varied  literary  talent 
as  the  Saturday  did  between  1855  and  1863.) 
Bowen’s  articles  were,  like  his  elder  brother’s, 
extremely  witty.  In  later  life  he  could  seldom 
be  induced  to  write,  having  fallen  out  of  the  habit, 
and  being,  indeed,  too  busy  to  carry  on  any  large 
piece  of  work  ;  but  the  occasional  papers  on  educa¬ 
tional  subjects  he  produced  showed  no  decline  in 
his  vivacity  or  in  the  abundance  of  his  humour. 
Those  who  knew  the  range  and  the  resources 
of  his  mind  sometimes  regretted  that  he  would 
do  nothing  to  let  the  world  know  them.  But  he 
was,  to  a  degree  most  unusual  among  men  of 
real  power,  absolutely  indifferent,  not  only  to 
fame,  but  to  opportunities  for  exercising  power 
or  influence. 

The  stoicism  which  he  sought  to  form  in  his 
pupils  was  inculcated  by  his  own  example.  It 


Edward  Bowen  361 

was  a  genial  and  cheerful  stoicism,  which  checked 
neither  his  affection  for  them  nor  his  brightness 
in  society,  and  which  permitted  him  to  draw  as 
much  enjoyment  from  small  things  as  most 
people  can  from  great  ones.  But  if  he  had 
the  gaiety  of  an  Irishman,  he  had  a  double  portion 
of  English  reserve.  He  never  gave  expression 
in  words  to  his  emotions.  He  never  seemed 
either  elated  or  depressed.  He  never  lost  his 
temper  and  never  seemed  to  be  curbing  it.  His 
tastes  and  way  of  life  were  simple  to  the  verge  of 
austerity ;  nor  did  he  appear  to  desire  anything 
more  than  what  he  had  obtained. 

It  is  natural  —  possibly  foolish,  yet  almost 
inevitable  —  that  those  who  perceive  in  a  friend 
the  presence  of  rare  and  brilliant  gifts  should 
desire  that  his  gifts  should  not  only  be  turned 
to  full  account  for  the  world’s  benefit,  but 
should  become  so  known  and  appreciated  as 
to  make  others  admire  and  value  what  they 
admire  and  value.  When  such  a  man  prefers  to 
live  his  life  in  his  own  way,  and  do  the  plain 
duties  that  lie  near  him,  with  no  thought  of 
anything  further,  they  feel,  though  they  may  try 
to  repress,  a  kind  of  disappointment,  as  though 
greatness  or  virtue  had  missed  its  mark  because 
known  to  few  besides  themselves.  Yet  there  is 
a  sense  in  which  that  friend  is  most  our  own  who 
has  least  belonged  to  the  world,  who  has  least 
cared  for  what  the  world  has  to  offer,  who  has 


362  Biographical  Studies 

chosen  the  simplest  and  purest  pleasures,  who 
has  rendered  the  service  that  his  way  of  life 
required  with  no  longing  for  any  wider  theatre 
or  any  applause  to  be  there  won.  Is  there  indeed 
anything  more  beautiful  than  a  life  of  quiet  self- 
sufficing  yet  beneficent  serenity,  such  as  the 
ancient  philosophers  inculcated,  a  life  which  is 
now  more  rarely  than  ever  led  by  men  of  shining 
gifts,  because  the  inducements  to  bring  such  gifts 
into  the  dusty  thoroughfares  of  the  world  have 
grown  more  numerous?  Bowen  had  the  best 
equipment  for  a  philosopher.  He  knew  the  things 
that  gave  him  pleasure,  and  sought  no  others.  He 
knew  what  he  could  do  well.  He  followed  his 
own  bent.  His  desires  were  few,  and  he  could 
gratify  them  all.  He  had  made  life  exactly  what 
he  washed  it  to  be.  Intensely  as  he  enjoyed 
travel,  he  never  uttered  a  note  of  regret  wffien  the 
beginning  of  a  Harrow  school  term  stopped  a 
journey  at  its  most  interesting  point,  so  dearly 
did  he  love  his  boys.  What  more  can  we  desire 
for  our  friends  than  this  —  that  in  remembering 
them  there  should  be  nothing  to  regret,  that  all 
w'ho  came  under  their  influence  should  feel  them¬ 
selves  for  ever  thereafter  the  better  for  that  in¬ 
fluence,  that  a  happy  and  peaceful  life  should  be 
crowned  by  a  sudden  and  painless  death  ? 


EDWIN  LAWRENCE  GODKIN 


As  with  the  progress  of  science  new  arts  emerge 
and  new  occupations  and  trades  are  created,  so 
with  the  progress  of  society  professions  pre¬ 
viously  unknown  arise,  evolve  new  types  of 
intellectual  excellence,  and  supply  a  new  theatre 
for  the  display  of  peculiar  and  exceptional  gifts. 
Such  a  profession,  such  a  type,  and  the  type 
which  is  perhaps  most  specially  characteristic  of 
our  times,  is  that  of  the  Editor.  It  scarcely 
existed  before  the  French  Revolution,  and  is,  as 
now  fully  developed,  a  product  of  the  last  eighty 
years.  Various  are  its  forms.  There  is  the 
Business  Editor,  who  runs  his  newspaper  as  a 
great  commercial  undertaking,  and  may  neither 
care  for  politics  nor  attach  himself  to  any  political 
party.  America  still  recollects  the  familiar 
example  set  by  James  Gordon  Bennett,  the 
founder  of  the  New  Yoi'k  Herald.  There  is  the 
Selective  Editor,  who  may  never  pen  a  line, 
but  shows  his  skill  in  gathering  an  able  staff 
round  him,  and  in  allotting  to  each  of  them 
the  work  he  can  do  best.  Such  an  one  was 
John  Douglas  Cook,  a  man  of  slender  culti- 

363 


364  Biographical  Studies 

vation  and  few  intellectual  interests,  but  still 
remembered  in  England  by  those  who  forty 
years  ago  knew  the  staff  of  the  Saturday  Review , 
then  in  its  brilliant  prime,  as  possessed  of  an 
extraordinary  instinct  for  the  topics  which  caught 
the  public  taste,  and  for  the  persons  capable  of 
handling  those  topics.  John  T.  Delane,  of  the 
Times ,  had  the  same  gift,  with  talents  and 
knowledge  far  surpassing  Cook’s.  A  third  and 
usually  more  interesting  form  is  found  in  the 
Editor  who  is  himself  an  able  writer,  and  who 
imparts  his  own  individuality  to  the  journal  he 
directs.  Such  an  one  was  Horace  Greeley, 
who,  in  the  days  before  the  War  of  Secession, 
made  the  New  York  Tribune  a  power  in 
America.  Such  another,  of  finer  natural  quality, 
was  Michael  Katkoff,  who  in  his  short  career 
did  much  to  create  and  to  develop  the  spirit 
of  nationality  and  imperialism  in  Russia  thirty 
years  ago. 

It  was  to  this  third  form  of  the  editorial  pro¬ 
fession  that  Mr.  Godkin  belonged.  He  is  the 
most  remarkable  example  of  it  that  has  appeared 
in  our  time  —  perhaps,  indeed,  in  any  time  since 
the  profession  rose  to  importance ;  and  all  the 
more  remarkable  because  he  was  never,  like 
Greeley  or  Katkoff,  the  exponent  of  any  wide¬ 
spread  sentiment  or  potent  movement,  but  was 
frequently  in  opposition  to  the  feeling  for  the  mo¬ 
ment  dominant. 


E.  L.  Godkin 


36S 

Edwin  Lawrence  Godkin,  the  son  of  a  Prot¬ 
estant  clergyman  and  author,  was  born  in  the 
county  of  Wicklow,  in  Ireland,  in  1831.  He 
was  educated  at  Queen’s  College,  Belfast,  read 
for  a  short  time  for  the  English  bar,  but  drifted 
into  journalism  by  accepting  the  post  of  corre¬ 
spondent  to  the  London  Daily  News  during  the 
Crimean  War  in  1853-54.  The  horror  of  war  which 
he  retained  through  his  life  was  due  to  the  glimpse 
of  it  he  had  in  the  Crimea.  Soon  afterwards  he 
went  to  America,  was  admitted  to  the  bar  in  New 
York,  but  never  practised,  spent  some  months  in 
travelling  through  the  Southern  States  on  horse¬ 
back,  learning  thereby  what  slavery  was,  and 
what  its  economic  and  social  consequences,  was 
for  two  or  three  years  a  writer  on  the  New  York 
Times ,  and  ultimately,  in  1865,  established  in 
New  York  a  weekly  journal  called  the  Nation. 
This  he  continued  to  edit,  writing  most  of  it 
himself,  till  1881,  when  he  accepted  the  editor¬ 
ship  of  the  New  York  Evening  Post ,  an  old  and 
respectable  paper,  but  with  no  very  large  circula¬ 
tion.  The  Nation  continued  to  appear,  but  be¬ 
came  practically  a  weekly  edition  of  the  Evening 
Post ,  or  rather,  as  some  one  said,  the  Evening 
Post  became  a  daily  edition  of  the  Nation ,  for 
the  tone  and  spirit  that  had  characterised  the 
Nation  now  pervaded  the  Post.  In  1900  failing 
health  compelled  him  to  retire  from  active  work, 
and  in  May  1902  he  died  in  England.  Journalism 


366  Biographical  Studies 

left  him  little  leisure  for  any  other  kind  of  literary 
production  ;  but  he  wrote  in  early  life  a  short 
history  of  Hungary;  and  a  number  of  articles 
which  he  had  in  later  years  contributed  to  the 
Nation  or  to  magazines  were  collected  and  pub¬ 
lished  in  three  volumes  between  1895  and  1900. 
They  are  clear  and  wise  articles,  specially  in¬ 
structive  where  they  deal  with  the  most  recent 
aspects  of  democracy.  But  as  they  convey  a  less 
than  adequate  impression  of  the  peculiar  qualities 
which  established  his  fame,  I  pass  on  to  the  work 
by  which  he  will  be  remembered,  his  work  as  a 
weekly  and  daily  public  writer. 

He  was  well  equipped  for  this  career  by 
considerable  experience  of  the  world,  by  large 
reading,  for  though  not  a  learned  man,  he  had 
assimilated  a  great  deal  of  knowledge  on  eco¬ 
nomical  and  historical  subjects,  and  by  a  stock 
of  positive  principles  which  he  saw  clearly  and 
held  coherently.  In  philosophy  and  economics 
he  was  a  Utilitarian  of  the  school  of  J.  S. 
Mill,  and  in  politics  what  used  to  be  called  a 
philosophical  Radical,  a  Radical  of  the  less 
extreme  type,  free  from  sentiment  and  from 
prejudices,  but  equally  free  from  any  desire  to 
destroy  for  the  sake  of  destroying.  Like  the 
other  Utilitarians  of  those  days,  he  was.  a 
moderate  optimist,  expecting  the  world  to  grow 
better  steadily,  though  not  swiftly;  and  he  went 
to  America  in  the  belief  that  he  should  there  find 


E.  L.  Godkin 


367 

more  progress  secured,  and  more  of  further  prog¬ 
ress  in  prospect,  than  any  European  country 
could  show.  It  was  the  land  of  promise,  in 
which  all  the  forces  making  for  good  on  which 
the  school  of  Mill  relied  were  to  be  found  at 
work,  hampered  only  by  the  presence  of  slavery. 
I  note  this  fact,  because  it  shows  that  the  pessi¬ 
mism  of  Mr.  Godkin’s  later  years  was  not  due  to  a 
naturally  querulous  or  despondent  temperament. 

So  too  was  his  mind  admirably  fitted  for  the 
career  he  had  chosen.  It  was  logical,  penetrat¬ 
ing,  systematic,  yet  it  was  also  quick  and 
nimble.  His  views  were  definite,  not  to  say 
dogmatic,  and  as  they  were  confidently  held, 
so  too  they  were  confidently  expressed.  He 
never  struck  a  doubtful  note.  He  never  slurred 
over  a  difficulty,  nor  sought,  when  he  knew 
himself  ignorant,  to  cover  up  his  ignorance. 
Imagination  was  kept  well  in  hand,  for  his  con¬ 
stant  aim  was  to  get  at  and  deal  with  the  vital 
facts  of  every  case.  If  he  was  not  original  in  the 
way  of  thinking  out  doctrines  distinctively  his 
own,  nor  in  respect  of  any  exuberance  of  ideas 
bubbling  up  in  the  course  of  discussion,  there  was 
fertility  as  well  as  freshness  in  his  application  of 
principles  to  current  questions,  and  in  the  illustra¬ 
tions  by  which  he  enforced  his  arguments. 

As  his  thinking  was  exact,  so  his  style  was 
clear-cut  and  trenchant.  Even  when  he  was 
writing  most  swiftly,  it  never  sank  below  a  high 


368  Biographical  Studies 

level  of  form  and  finish.  Every  word  had  its 
use  and  every  sentence  told.  There  was  no 
doubt  about  his  meaning,  and  just  as  little  about 
the  strength  of  his  convictions.  He  had  a  gift 
for  terse  vivacious  paragraphs  commenting  on 
some  event  of  the  day  or  summing  up  the  effect 
of  a  speech  or  a  debate.  The  touch  was  equally 
light  and  firm.  But  if  the  manner  was  brisk,  the 
matter  was  solid:  you  admired  the  keenness  of 
the  insight  and  the  weight  of  the  judgment  just 
as  much  as  the  brightness  of  the  style.  Much  of 
the  brightness  lay  in  the  humour.  That  is  a 
plant  which  blossoms  so  much  more  profusely  on 
Transatlantic  soil  that  English  readers  of  the 
Nation  had  usually  a  start  of  surprise  when  told 
that  this  most  humorous  of  American  journalists 
was  not  an  American  at  all  but  a  European, 
and  indeed  a  European  who  never  became 
thoroughly  Americanised.  It  was  humour  of 
a  pungent  and  sarcastic  quality,  usually  directed 
to  the  detection  of  tricks  or  the  exposure  of 
shams,  but  it  was  eminently  mirth-provoking  and 
never  malicious.  Frequently  it  was  ironical,  and 
the  irony  sometimes  so  fine  as  to  be  mistaken 
for  seriousness. 

The  Nation  was  from  its  very  first  numbers 
so  full  of  force,  keenness,  and  knowledge,  and  so 
unusually  well  written,  that  it  made  its  way  rapidly 
among  the  educated  classes  of  the  Eastern  States. 
It  soon  became  a  power,  but  a  power  of  a  new 


E.  L.  Godkin  369 

kind.  Mr.  Godkin  wanted  most  of  the  talents 
or  interests  of  the  ordinary  journalist.  He 
gave  no  thought  to  the  organisation  of  the 
paper  as  a  business  undertaking.  He  scarcely 
heeded  circulation,  either  when  his  livelihood 
depended  upon  the  Nation  of  which  he  was  the 
chief  owner,  or  when  he  was  associated  with 
others  in  the  ownership  of  the  Evening  Post. 
He  refused  to  allow  any  news  he  disapproved, 
including  all  scandal  and  all  society  gossip,  to 
appear.  He  was  prepared  at  any  moment  to 
incur  unpopularity  from  his  subscribers,  or  even 
to  offend  one  half  of  his  advertisers.  He  took 
no  pains  to  get  news  before  other  journals,  and 
cared  nothing  for  those  “  beats  ”  and  “  scoops  ”  in 
which  the  soul  of  the  normal  newspaper  man 
finds  a  legitimate  source  of  pride.  He  was  not 
there,  he  would  have  said,  to  please  either  ad¬ 
vertisers  or  subscribers,  but  to  tell  the  American 
people  the  truths  they  needed  to  hear,  and  if 
those  truths  were  distasteful,  so  much  the  more 
needful  was  it  to  proclaim  them.  He  was  abso¬ 
lutely  independent  not  only  of  all  personal  but 
of  all  party  ties.  A  public  man  was  never 
either  praised  or  suffered  to  escape  censure  be¬ 
cause  he  was  a  private  acquaintance.  He  once 
told  me  that  the  being  obliged  to  censure  those 
with  whom  he  stood  in  personal  relations  was 
the  least  agreeable  feature  of  his  profession. 
Whether  an  act  was  done  by  the  Republicans 


370  Biographical  Studies 

or  by  the  Democrats  made  no  difference  to  his 
judgment,  or  to  the  severity  with  which  his 
judgment  was  expressed.  His  distrust  of  Mr. 
James  G.  Blaine  had  led  him  to  support  Mr. 
Cleveland  at  the  election  of  1884,  and  he  con¬ 
tinued  to  give  a  general  approval  to  the  latter 
statesman  during  both  his  presidential  terms.  But 
when  Mr.  Cleveland’s  Venezuelan  message  with 
its  menaces  to  England  appeared  in  December 
1895,  Mr.  Godkin  vehemently  denounced  it,  as 
indeed  he  had  frequently  before  blamed  particular 
acts  of  the  Cleveland  administrations.  He  some¬ 
times  voted  for  the  Republicans,  sometimes  for 
the  Democrats,  according  to  the  merits  of  the 
transitory  issue  or  the  particular  candidate,  but 
after  1884  no  one  could  have  called  him  either  a 
Republican  or  a  Democrat. 

Independence  of  party  is  less  rare  among 
American  than  among  European  newspapers; 
but  courage  such  as  Godkin’s  is  rare  every¬ 
where.  The  editor  of  a  century  ago  had  in  most 
countries  to  fear  press  censorship,  or  the  law  of 
political  libel,  or  the  frowns  of  the  great.  The 
modern  editor,  delivered  from  these  risks,  is 
exposed  to  the  more  insidious  temptations  of 
financial  influence,  of  social  pressure,  of  the 
fear  of  injuring  the  business  interests  of  the 
paper,  which  are  now  sometimes  enormous. 
Godkin’s  conscientiousness  and  pride  made  him 
equally  indifferent  to  influence  and  to  threats.  As 


E.  L.  Godkin 


37 1 

some  one  said,  you  might  as  well  have  tried  to 
frighten  the  east  wind.  Clear,  prompt,  and  self- 
confident,  judging  everything  by  a  high  standard 
of  honour  and  public  spirit,  he  distributed  censure 
with  no  regard  either  to  the  official  position 
or  to  the  party  affiliations  of  politicians.  The 
“Weekly  Day  of  Judgment”  was  the  title 
bestowed  upon  the  Nation  by  Charles  Dudley 
Warner,  who  himself  admired  it.  As  Godkin 
expected  —  or  at  least  demanded  —  righteousness 
from  every  one,  he  was  more  a  terror  to  evil¬ 
doers  than  a  praise  to  them  that  do  well,  and 
the  fact  that,  having  no  private  ends  to  serve, 
he  thought  only  of  truth  and  the  public  interest, 
made  him  all  the  more  stringent.  Because 
he  was,  and  found  it  easy  to  be,  fearless  and  in¬ 
dependent,  he  scarcely  allowed  enough  for  the 
timidity  of  others,  and  sometimes  chastised  the 
weak  as  sternly  as  the  wicked.  An  editor  who 
smites  all  the  self-seekers  and  all  the  time-servers 
whom  he  thinks  worth  smiting,  is  sure  to  be¬ 
come  a  target  for  many  arrows.  But  as  Godkin 
was  an  equally  caustic  critic  of  the  sentimental 
vagaries  or  economic  heresies  of  well-meaning 
men  or  sections  of  opinion,  he  incurred  hostility 
from  quarters  where  the  desire  for  honest  adminis¬ 
tration  and  the  purity  of  public  life  was  hardly 
less  strong  than  in  the  pages  of  the  Nation  itself. 
Though  he  took  no  personal  part  in  politics,  never 
appeared  on  platforms  nor  in  any  way  put  himself 


372  Biographical  Studies 

forward,  his  paper  was  so  markedly  himself  that 
people  talked  of  it  as  him.  It  was  not  “  the 
Nation  says  ”  or  “  the  Post  says,”  but  “  Godkin 
says.”  Even  his  foreign  birth  was  charged 
against  him  —  a  rare  charge  in  a  country  so 
tolerant  and  catholic  as  the  United  States,  where 
every  office  except  that  of  President  is  open  to 
newcomers  as  freely  as  to  the  native  born. 

He  was  called  “un-American,”  and  I  have 
heard  men  who  admired  and  read  the  Nation 
nevertheless  complain  that  they  did  not  want  “to 
be  taught  by  a  European  how  to  run  this  Re¬ 
public.”  True  it  is  that  he  did  not  see  things  or 
write  about  them  quite  as  an  American  would 
have  done.  But  was  this  altogether  a  misfortune  ? 
The  Italian  cities  of  the  Middle  Ages  used  to  call 
in  a  man  of  character  and  mark  from  some  other 
place  and  make  him  Podesta  just  because  he  stood 
outside  the  family  ties  and  the  factions  of  the 
city.  Godkin’s  foreign  education  gave  him  de¬ 
tachment  and  perspective.  It  never  reduced  his 
ardour  to  see  administration  and  public  life  in 
America  made  worthy  of  the  greatness  of  the 
American  people. 

No  journal  could  have  maintained  its  circula¬ 
tion  and  extended  its  influence  in  the  face  of  so 
much  hostility  except  by  commanding  merits. 
The  merits  of  the  Nation  were  incontestable. 
It  was  the  best  weekly  not  only  in  America 
but  in  the  world.  The  editorials  were  models 


E.  L.  Godkin  373 

of  style.  The  book  reviews,  many  of  them 
in  earlier  days  also  written  by  Godkin  himself, 
were  finished  in  point  of  form,  and,  when  not 
his  own,  came  from  the  ablest  specialist  hands 
in  the  country.  The  “  current  notes  ”  of  progress 
in  such  subjects  as  geography,  natural  history, 
and  archaeology  were  instructive  and  accurate. 
So  it  was  that  people  had  to  read  the  Nation 
whether  they  liked  it  or  not.  It  could  not  be 
ignored.  It  was  a  necessity  even  where  it  was  a 
terror. 

Yet  neither  the  force  of  his  reasoning  nor 
the  brilliance  of  his  style  would  have  secured 
Godkin’s  influence  but  for  two  other  elements  of 
strength  he  possessed.  One  was  the  universal 
belief  in  his  disinterestedness  and  sincerity. 
He  was  often  charged  with  prejudice  or  bitter¬ 
ness,  but  never  with  any  sinister  motive  ;  enemies 
no  less  than  friends  respected  him.  The 
other  was  his  humour.  An  austere  moralist 
who  is  brimful  of  fun  is  rare  in  any  country. 
Relishing  humour  more  than  does  any  other 
people,  the  Americans  could  not  be  seriously 
angry  with  a  man  who  gave  them  so  abundant  a 
feast. 

To  trace  the  course  he  took  in  the  politics  of 
the  United  States  since  i860  would  almost  be 
to  outline  the  history  of  forty  years,  for  there 
was  no  great  issue  in  the  discussion  of  which 
he  did  not  bear  a  part.  He  was  a  strong  sup- 


374  Biographical  Studies 

porter  of  the  Northern  cause  during  the  War 
of  Secession,  and  by  his  letters  to  the  London 
Daily  News  did  something  to  enlighten  English 
readers.  When  the  problems  of  reconstruction 
emerged  after  the  war,  he  suggested  lines  of 
action  more  moderate  than  those  followed  by  the 
Republican  leaders,  and  during  many  subse¬ 
quent  years  denounced  the  “  carpet-baggers,”  and 
advocated  the  policy  of  restoring  self-govern¬ 
ment  to  the  Southern  States  and  withdrawing 
Federal  troops.  Incensed  at  the  corruption  of 
some  of  the  men  who  surrounded  President 
Grant  during  his  first  term,  he  opposed  Grant’s 
re-election,  as  did  nearly  all  the  reformers  of 
those  days.  By  this  time  he  had  begun  to  attack 
the  “  spoils  system,”  and  to  demand  a  reform  of 
the  civil  service,  and  he  had  also  become  engaged 
in  that  campaign  against  the  Tammany  organisa¬ 
tion  in  New  York  City  which  he  maintained 
with  unabated  energy  till  the  end  of  his  editorial 
career.1  In  1884  he  led  the  opposition  to  the 
candidacy  of  Mr.  Blaine  for  President,  and  it  was 
mainly  the  persistency  with  which  the  Evening 
Post  set  forth  the  accusations  brought  against 
that  statesman  that  secured  his  defeat  in  New 
York  State,  and  therewith  his  defeat  in  the 
election.  It  was  on  this  occasion  that  the  nick- 

1  The  Tammany  leaders  had  him  repeatedly  arrested,  usually  on 
Sunday  mornings  (that  being  the  day  on  which  it  was  least  easy  to  find 
bail)  for  alleged  criminal  libels  upon  them.  These  prosecutions,  threatened 
in  the  hope  of  intimidating  him,  never  went  further. 


E.  L.  Godkin 


375 

name  of  Mugwump1  was  first  applied  to  Mr. 
Godkin  by  the  ablest  of  his  antagonists  in  the 
press,  Mr.  Dana  of  the  New  York  Sun ,  a  title 
before  long  extended  to  the  Independents  whom 
the  Post  led,  and  who  constituted,  during  the 
next  ten  or  twelve  years,  a  section  of  opinion 
important,  if  not  by  its  numbers,  yet  by  the 
intellectual  and  moral  weight  of  the  men  who 
composed  it.  When  currency  questions  became 
prominent,  Mr.  Godkin  was  a  strong  opponent 
of  bimetallism  and  of  “  silverism  ”  in  all  its 
forms,  and  a  not  less  strenuous  opponent  of  all 
socialistic  theories  and  movements.  It  need 
hardly  be  added  that  he  had  always  been  an 
upholder  of  the  principles  of  Free  Trade.  Like 
a  sound  Cobdenite,  he  was  an  advocate  of  peace, 
and  disliked  territorial  extension.  He  opposed 
President  Grant’s  scheme  for  the  acquisition 
of  San  Domingo,  as  he  afterwards  opposed  the 
annexation  of  Hawaii.  His  close  study  of  Irish 
history,  and  his  old  faith  in  the  principle  of 
nationality,  had  made  him  a  strenuous  advocate  of 
Home  Rule  for  Ireland.  But  no  one  was  further 
than  he  from  sharing  the  feelings  of  the  Ameri¬ 
can  Irish  towards  England.  He  condemned  the 
threats  addressed  in  1895  to  Great  Britain  over 
the  Venezuela  question;  and  glad  as  he  was  to 


1  A  Mugwump  is  in  the  Algonquin  tongue  an  aged  chief  or  wise  man, 
and  the  name  was  meant  to  ridicule  the  ex  cathedra  manner  ascribed  to 
the  Evening  Post. 


376  Biographical  Studies 

see  that  question  settled  by  England’s  accept¬ 
ance  of  an  arbitration  which  she  had  previously 
denied  the  right  of  the  United  States  to 
demand,  he  held  that  England  must  beware  of 
yielding  too  readily  to  pressure  from  the  United 
States,  because  such  compliance  would  encourage 
that  aggressive  spirit  in  the  latter  whose  con¬ 
sequences  for  both  countries  he  feared.  Never, 
perhaps,  did  he  incur  so  much  obloquy  as  in 
defending,  almost  single-handed,  the  British  posi¬ 
tion  in  the  Venezuelan  affair.  The  attacks  made 
all  over  the  country  on  the  Evening  Post  were, 
he  used  to  say,  like  storms  of  hail  lashing  against 
his  windows.  At  the  very  end  of  his  career,  he 
resisted  the  war  with  Spain  and  the  annexation 
of  the  Philippine  Islands,  deeming  the  acquisi¬ 
tion  of  trans-Oceanic  territories,  inhabited  by 
inferior  races,  a  dangerous  new  departure,  opposed 
to  the  traditions  of  the  Fathers  of  the  Republic, 
and  inconsistent  with  the  principles  on  which  the 
Republic  was  founded.  No  public  writer  has  left 
a  more  consistent  record. 

In  private  life  Mr.  Godkin  was  a  faithful 
friend  and  a  charming  companion,  genial  as  well 
as  witty,  considerate  of  others,  and  liked  no  less 
than  admired  by  his  staff  on  the  Evening  Post , 
free  from  cynicism,  and  more  indulgent  in  his 
views  of  human  nature  than  might  have  been 
gathered  from  his  public  utterances.  He  never 
despaired  of  democratic  government,  yet  his 


E.  L.  Godkin 


377 


spirits  had  been  damped  by  the  faint  fulfilment 
of  those  hopes  for  the  progress  of  free  nations, 
and  especially  of  the  United  States,  which  had 
illumined  his  youth.  The  slow  advance  of 
economic  truths,  the  evils  produced  by  the  in¬ 
crease  of  wealth,  the  growth  of  what  he  called 
“  chromo-civilisation,”  the  indifference  of  the  rich 
and  educated  to  politics,  the  want  of  nerve 
among  politicians,  the  excitability  of  the  masses, 
the  tenacity  with  which  corruption  and  misgov- 
ernment  held  their  ground,  in  spite  of  repeated 
exposures,  in  cities  like  New  York,  Philadel¬ 
phia,  and  Chicago  —  all  these  things  had  so 
sunk  into  his  soul  that  it  became  hard  to  induce 
him  to  look  at  the  other  side,  and  to  appreci¬ 
ate  the  splendid  recuperative  forces  which  are 
at  work  in  America.  Thus  his  friends  were 
driven  to  that  melancholy  form  of  comfort  which 
consists  in  pointing  out  that  other  countries  are 
no  better.  They  argued  that  England  in  par¬ 
ticular,  to  which  he  had  continued  to  look  as  the 
home  of  political  morality  and  enlightened  State 
wisdom,  was  suffering  from  evils,  not  indeed  the 
same  as  those  which  in  his  judgment  afflicted 
America,  but  equally  serious.  They  bade  him 
remember  that  moral  progress  is  not  continuous, 
but  subject  to  ebbs  of  reaction,  and  that  America 
is  a  country  of  which  one  should  never  despair, 
because  in  it  evils  have  often  before  worked  out 
their  cure.  He  did  regretfully  own,  after  his 


37 8  Biographical  Studies 

latest  visits  to  Europe,  that  England  had  sadly- 
declined  from  the  England  of  his  earlier  days, 
and  he  admitted  that  the  clouds  under  which  his 
own  path  had  latterly  lain  might  after  a  time  be 
scattered  by  a  burst  of  sunshine ;  but  his  hopes 
for  the  near  future  of  America  were  not  bright¬ 
ened  by  these  reflections.  Sometimes  he  seemed 
to  feel  —  though  of  his  own  work  he  never  spoke 
—  as  though  he  had  laboured  in  vain  for  forty 
years. 

If  he  so  thought,  he  did  his  work  far  less 
than  justice.  It  had  told  powerfully  upon  the 
United  States,  and  that  in  more  than  one  way. 
Though  the  circulation  of  the  Nation  was  never 
large,  it  was  read  by  the  two  classes  which  in 
America  have  most  to  do  with  forming  political 
and  economic  opinion —  I  mean  editors  and  Uni¬ 
versity  teachers.  (The  U  niversities  and  Colleges, 
be  it  remembered,  are  far  more  numerous,  rela¬ 
tively  to  the  population,  in  America  than  in  Eng¬ 
land,  and  a  more  important  factor  in  the  thought 
of  the  country.)  From  the  editors  and  the  profes¬ 
sors  Mr.  Godkin’s  views  filtered  down  into  the  edu¬ 
cated  class  generally,  and  affected  its  opinion.  He 
instructed  and  stimulated  the  men  who  instructed 
and  stimulated  the  rest  of  the  people.  To  those 
young  men  in  particular  who  thought  about 
public  affairs  and  were  preparing  themselves  to 
serve  their  country,  his  articles  were  an  inspira¬ 
tion.  The  great  hope  for  American  democracy 


E.  L.  Godkin 


379 

to-day  lies  in  the  growing  zeal  and  the  ripened 
intelligence  with  which  the  generation  now  come 
to  manhood  has  begun  to  throw  itself  into  public 
work.  Many  influences  have  contributed  to  this 
result,  and  Mr.  Godkin’s  has  been  among  the 
most  potent. 

Nor  was  his  example  less  beneficial  to  the 
profession  of  journalism.  There  has  always 
been  a  profusion  of  talent  in  the  American  press, 
talent  more  alert  and  versatile  than  is  to  be  found 
in  the  press  of  any  European  country.  But  in 
1865  there  were  three  things  which  the  United 
States  lacked.  Literary  criticism  did  not  maintain 
a  high  standard,  nor  duly  distinguish  thorough  from 
flashy  or  superficial  performances.  Party  spirit  was 
so  strong  and  so  pervasive  that  journalists  were 
content  to  denounce  or  to  extol,  and  seldom  sub¬ 
jected  the  character  of  men  or  measures  to  a 
searching  and  impartial  examination.  There  was 
too  much  sentimentalism  in  politics,  with  too  little 
reference  of  current  questions  to  underlying  prin¬ 
ciples,  too  little  effort  to  get  down  to  what  Ameri¬ 
cans  call  the  “hard  pan  ”  of  facts.  In  all  these 
respects  the  last  forty  years  have  witnessed  pro¬ 
digious  advances ;  and,  so  far  as  the  press  is 
concerned  —  for  much  has  been  due  to  the  Uni¬ 
versities  and  to  the  growth  of  a  literary  class  — 
Mr.  Godkin’s  writings  largely  contributed  to  the 
progress  made.  His  finished  criticism,  his  exact 
method,  his  incisive  handling  of  economic  prob- 


380  Biographical  Studies 

lems,  his  complete  detachment  from  party,  helped 
to  form  a  new  school  of  journalists,  as  the  ex¬ 
ample  he  set  of  a  serious  and  lofty  conception  of  an 
editor’s  duties  helped  to  add  dignity  to  the  position. 
He  had  not  that  disposition  to  enthrone  the  press 
which  made  a  great  English  newspaper  once  claim 
for  itself  that  it  discharged  in  the  modern  world  the 
functions  of  the  mediaeval  Church.  But  he  brought 
to  his  work  as  an  anonymous  writer  a  sense  of  re¬ 
sponsibility  and  a  zeal  for  the  welfare  of  his  country 
which  no  minister  of  State  could  have  surpassed. 

His  friends  may  sometimes  have  wished  that 
he  had  more  fully  recognised  the  worth  of  senti¬ 
ment  as  a  motive  power  in  politics,  that  he  had 
more  frequently  tried  to  persuade  as  well  as  to  con¬ 
vince,  that  he  had  given  more  credit  for  partial 
instalments  of  honest  service  and  for  a  virtue  less 
than  perfect,  that  he  had  dealt  more  leniently 
with  the  faults  of  the  good  and  the  follies  of  the 
wise.  Defects  in  these  respects  were  the  almost 
inevitable  defects  of  his  admirable  qualities,  of 
his  passion  for  truth,  his  hatred  of  wrong  and 
injustice,  his  clear  vision,  his  indomitable  spirit. 

The  lesson  of  his  editorial  career  is  a  lesson 
not  for  America  only.  Among  the  dangers  that 
beset  democratic  communities,  none  are  greater 
than  the  efforts  of  wealth  to  control,  not  only 
electors  and  legislators,  but  also  the  organs  of 
public  opinion,  and  the  disposition  of  statesmen 
and  journalists  to  defer  to  and  flatter  the  majority, 


E.  L.  Godkin  381 

adopting  the  sentiment  dominant  at  the  moment, 
and  telling  the  people  that  its  voice  is  the  voice 
of  God.  Mr.  Godkin  was  not  only  inaccessible 
to  the  lures  of  wealth  —  the  same  may  happily  be 
still  said  of  many  of  his  craft-brethren  —  he  was 
just  as  little  accessible  to  the  fear  of  popular 
displeasure.  Nothing  more  incensed  him  than 
to  see  a  statesman  or  an  editor  with  his  “ear  to 
the  ground  ”  (to  use  an  American  phrase),  seeking 
to  catch  the  sound  of  the  coming  crowd.  To 
him,  the  less  popular  a  view  was,  so  much  the 
more  did  it  need  to  be  well  weighed  and,  if 
approved,  to  be  strenuously  and  incessantly 
preached.  Democracies  will  always  have  dema¬ 
gogues  ready  to  feed  their  vanity  and  stir  their 
passions  and  exaggerate  the  feeling  of  the 
moment.  What  they  need  is  men  who  will 
swim  against  the  stream,  will  tell  them  their 
faults,  will  urge  an  argument  all  the  more  forci¬ 
bly  because  it  is  unwelcome.  Such  an  one  was 
Edwin  Godkin.  Since  the  death  of  Abraham 
Lincoln,  America  has  been  generally  more  in¬ 
fluenced  by  her  writers,  preachers,  and  thinkers 
than  by  her  statesmen.  In  the  list  of  those  who 
have  during  the  last  forty  years  influenced  her 
for  good  and  helped  by  their  pens  to  make  her 
history,  a  list  illustrated  by  such  names  as  those 
of  R.  W.  Emerson  and  Phillips  Brooks  and 
James  Russell  Lowell,  his  name  will  find  its 
place  and  receive  its  well-earned  meed  of  honour. 


LORD  ACTON 


When  Lord  Acton  died  on  19th  June  1902,  at 
Tegern  See  in  Bavaria,  England  lost  the  most  truly 
cosmopolitan  of  her  children,  and  Europe  lost  one 
who  was,  by  universal  consent,  in  the  foremost  rank 
of  her  men  of  learning.  He  belonged  to  an  old 
Roman  Catholic  family  of  Shropshire,  a  branch 
of  which  had  gone  to  Southern  Italy,  where  his 
grandfather,  General  Acton,  had  been  chief 
minister  of  the  King  of  Naples  in  the  great 
war,  at  the  time  when  the  Bourbon  dynasty 
maintained  itself  in  Sicily  by  the  help  of 
the  British  fleet,  while  all  Italy  lay  under  the 
heel  of  Napoleon.  His  father,  Sir  Ferdinand 
Acton,  married  a  German  lady,  heiress  of  the 
ancient  and  famous  house  of  Dalberg,  one  of  the 
great  families  of  the  middle  Rhineland;  so  John 
Edward  Emerich  Dalberg-Acton  was  born  half  a 
German,  and  connected  by  blood  with  the  highest 
aristocracy  of  Germany.  He  was  educated  at 
Oscott,  one  of  the  two  chief  Roman  Catholic 
colleges  of  England,  under  Dr.  Wiseman,  after¬ 
wards  Archbishop  of  Westminster  and  Cardinal; 
but  the  most  powerful  influence  on  the  develop- 

382 


Lord  Acton 


383 

ment  of  his  mind  and  principles  came  from 
that  glory  of  Catholic  learning,  a  beautiful 
soul  as  well  as  a  capacious  intellect,  Dr.  von 
Dollinger,  with  whom  Acton  studied  during  some 
years  at  Munich.  He  sat  for  a  short  time  in 
the  House  of  Commons  as  member  for  Carlow 
(1859);  and  was  afterwards  elected  for  Bridg¬ 
north  (1865),  but  lost  his  seat  (which  he  had 
gained  by  one  vote  only)  on  a  scrutiny.  In 
those  days  it  was  not  easy  for  a  Roman  Catholic 
to  find  an  English  constituency,  so  in  1869  Mr. 
Gladstone  procured  his  elevation  to  the  peer¬ 
age.  He  made  a  successful  speech  in  the  House 
of  Lords  in  1893,  but  took  no  prominent  part  in 
parliamentary  life  in  either  House,  feeling  himself 
too  much  of  a  student,  and  looking  at  current 
questions  from  a  point  of  view  unlike  that  of 
English  politicians.  Neither  as  a  philosopher, 
nor  as  a  historian,  nor  as  a  product  of  German 
training,  could  he  find  either  Lords  or  Commons 
a  congenial  audience.  When  he  was  asked  soon 
after  he  entered  Parliament  why  he  did  not  speak, 
he  answered  that  he  agreed  with  nobody  and  no¬ 
body  agreed  with  him.  But  since  he  regarded 
politics  as  history  in  the  course  of  making  under 
his  eyes,  he  continued  to  be  all  his  life  keenly  inter¬ 
ested  in  public  affairs,  watching  and  judging  every 
move  in  the  game.  Mr.  Gladstone,  whose  trusted 
friend  he  had  been  for  many  years,  was  believed  to 
have  on  one  occasion  wished  to  place  him  in  an 


384  Biographical  Studies 

important  office  ;  but  political  exigencies  made  this 
impossible,  and  the  only  public  post  he  ever  held 
was  that  of  Lord-in- Waiting  in  the  Ministry  of 
1892.  In  this  capacity  he  was  brought  into 
frequent  contact  with  Queen  Victoria,  who  felt 
the  warmest  respect  and  admiration  for  him.  He 
was  one  of  the  very  few  persons  surrounding  her 
who  was  familiar  with  most  of  the  courts  of  Con¬ 
tinental  Europe,  and  could  discuss  with  her  from 
direct  knowledge  the  men  who  figured  in  those 
courts.  At  Windsor  he  spent  in  the  library  of 
the  Castle  all  the  time  during  which  he  was  not 
required  to  be  in  actual  attendance  on  the  Queen, 
a  singular  phenomenon  among  Lords-in-Waiting. 

Unlike  most  English  Roman  Catholics,  he  was 
a  strong  Liberal,  a  Liberal  of  that  orthodox  type, 
individualist,  free-trade,  and  peace-loving,  which 
prevailed  from  1846  till  1885.  He  was  also  a 
convinced  Home  Ruler,  and  had,  indeed,  adopted 
the  principle  of  Home  Rule  for  Ireland  long 
before  Mr.  Gladstone  himself  was  converted  to  it. 
His  faith  in  that  principle  rested  on  the  value  he 
attached  to  self-government  as  a  means  of  train¬ 
ing  and  developing  the  political  aptitudes  of  a 
people,  and  to  the  recognition  of  national  senti¬ 
ment,  which  he  held  to  be,  like  other  natural  forces, 
useful  when  guided  but  formidable  when  repressed. 
So  too  his  Liberalism  was  based  on  the  love  of 
freedom  for  its  own  sake,  joined  to  the  convic¬ 
tion  that  freedom  is  the  best  foundation  for  the 


Lord  Acton 


385 

stability  of  a  constitution  and  the  happiness  of 
a  people.  Reliance  on  the  power  of  freedom 
was,  he  used  to  say,  one  of  the  broadest  of  all  the 
lessons  he  had  learned  from  history.  He  applied 
it  in  ecclesiastical  as  well  as  in  political  affairs. 
At  the  time  of  the  Vatican  Council  of  1870  he 
was,  though  a  layman,  prominent  among  those 
who  constituted  the  opposition  maintained  by  the 
Liberal  section  of  the  Roman  Catholic  Church 
to  the  affirmation  of  the  dogma  of  papal  infalli¬ 
bility.  His  full  and  accurate  knowledge  of  ecclesi¬ 
astical  history  was  placed  at  the  disposal  of  the 
prelates,  such  as  Archbishop  Dupanloup,  Bishop 
Strossmayer,  and  Archbishop  Conolly  (of  Halifax, 
Nova  Scotia),  who  combated  the  Ultramontane 
party  in  the  animated  and  protracted  debates 
which  illumined  that  CEcumenical  Council.  One, 
at  least,  of  the  treatises,  and  many  of  the  letters  in 
the  press  which  the  Council  called  forth  were 
written  either  by  him  or  from  materials  which  he 
supplied,  and  he  was  recognised  by  the  Ultra- 
montanes,  and  in  particular  by  Archbishop  Man¬ 
ning,  as  being,  along  with  Dollinger,  the  most 
formidable  of  their  opponents  behind  the  scenes. 
As  every  one  knows,  the  Infallibilists  triumphed, 
and  the  schism  which  led  to  the  formation  of  the 
Old  Catholic  Church  in  Germany  and  Switzerland 
was  the  result.  Dollinger  was  excommunicated ; 
but  against  Lord  Acton  no  action  was  taken,  and 
he  remained  all  his  life  a  faithful  member  of  the 


386  Biographical  Studies 

Roman  communion  while  adhering  to  the  views 
he  had  advocated  in  1870. 

With  this  close  hold  upon  practical  life  and 
this  constant  interest  in  the  politics  of  the  world, 
especially  of  England  and  the  United  States,  no 
one  could  be  less  like  that  cloistered  student  who 
is  commonly  taken  as  the  typical  man  of  learning. 
But  Lord  Acton  was  a  miracle  of  learning.  Of 
the  sciences  of  nature  and  their  practical  applica¬ 
tions  in  the  arts  he  had  indeed  no  more  know¬ 
ledge  than  any  cultivated  man  of  the  world  is 
expected  to  possess.  But  of  all  the  so-called 
“  human  subjects  ”  his  mastery  was  unequalled. 
Learning  was  the  business  of  his  life.  He  was 
gifted  with  a  singularly  tenacious  memory.  His 
industry  was  untiring.  Wherever  he  was  —  in 
London,  at  Cannes  in  winter,  at  Tegern  See  in 
summer,  at  Windsor  or  Osborne  with  the  Queen, 
latterly  (till  his  health  failed)  at  Cambridge  dur¬ 
ing  the  University  terms  —  he  never  worked  less 
than  eight  hours  a  day.  Yet,  even  after  making 
every  allowance  for  his  memory  and  his  industry, 
his  friends  stood  amazed  at  the  range  and  exact¬ 
ness  of  his  knowledge.  It  was  as  various  as  it  was 
profound,  and  much  of  it  bore  on  recondite  matters 
which  few  men  study  to-day.  Though  less  minute 
where  it  touched  the  ancient  and  the  early  medi¬ 
aeval  world  than  as  respected  more  recent  times, 
it  might  be  said  to  cover  the  whole  field  of  history, 
both  civil  and  ecclesiastical,  and  became  wonderfully 


Lord  Acton 


387 

full  and  exact  when  it  reached  the  Renaissance  and 
Reformation  periods.  It  included  not  only  the 
older  theology,  but  modern  Biblical  criticism.  It 
included  metaphysics  ;  and  not  only  metaphysics  in 
the  more  special  sense,  but  the  abstract  side  of 
economics  and  that  philosophy  of  law  on  which 
the  Germans  set  so  much  store.  Most  of  the 
prominent  figures  who  have  during  the  last  half- 
century  led  the  march  of  inquiry  in  these  sub¬ 
jects,  men  like  Ranke  and  Fustel  de  Coulanges 
in  history,  Wilhelm  Roscher  in  economic  science, 
Adolf  Harnack  in  theology,  were  his  personal 
friends,  and  he  could  meet  them  as  an  equal  on 
their  own  ground.  On  one  occasion  I  had  in¬ 
vited  to  meet  him  at  dinner  the  late  Dr.  (after¬ 
wards  Bishop)  Creighton,  who  was  then  writing 
his  History  of  the  Popes ,  and  the  late  Professor 
Robertson  Smith,  the  most  eminent  Hebrew 
and  Arabic  scholar  in  Britain.  The  conversa¬ 
tion  turned  first  upon  the  times  of  Pope  Leo 
the  Tenth,  and  then  upon  recent  controversies 
regarding  the  dates  of  the  books  of  the  Old 
Testament,  and  it  soon  appeared  that  Lord 
Acton  knew  as  much  about  the  former  as  Dr. 
Creighton,  and  as  much  about  the  latter  as 
Robertson  Smith.  The  constitutional  history  of 
the  United  States  is  a  topic  far  removed  from 
those  philosophical  and  ecclesiastical  or  theologi¬ 
cal  lines  of  inquiry  to  which  most  of  his  time  had 
been  given  ;  yet  he  knew  it  more  thoroughly  than 


388  Biographical  Studies 

any  other  living  European,  at  least  in  England 
and  France,  for  of  the  Germans  I  will  not  venture 
to  speak,  and  he  continued  to  read  most  of  the 
books  of  importance  dealing  with  it  which  from 
time  to  time  were  published.  So,  indeed,  he 
kept  abreast  of  nearly  all  the  literature  of  possible 
utility  bearing  on  history  (especially  ecclesiastical 
history)  and  political  theory  that  appeared  in 
Europe  or  America,  reading  much  which  his  less 
diligent  or  less  eager  friends  thought  scarcely 
worthy  of  his  perusal.  And  it  need  hardly  be 
said  that  his  friends  found  him  an  invaluable  guide 
to  the  literature  of  any  subject.  In  the  sphere 
of  history  more  especially,  one  might  safely 
assume  that  a  book  which  he  did  not  know  was 
not  worth  knowing,  while  he  was  often  able  to 
indicate,  as  being  the  right  book  to  consult,  some 
work  of  which  the  person  who  consulted  him 
albeit  not  unversed  in  the  subject,  had  never 
heard.  He  had  at  one  time  four  libraries,  the 
largest  at  his  family  seat,  Aldenham  in  Shrop¬ 
shire,  others  at  Tegern  See,  at  Cannes,  and  in 
London ;  and  he  could  usually  tell  in  which  of 
these  the  particular  book  he  named  was  to  be 
found.  Unlike  most  men  who  value  their 
libraries,  he  was  fond  of  lending  books,  and 
would  sometimes  put  a  friend  to  shame  by  asking 
some  weeks  afterwards  what  the  latter  thought 
of  the  volumes  he  had  almost  forced  on  the 
borrower,  and  which  the  borrower  had  not  found 


Lord  Acton 


389 

time  to  read.  After  saying  this,  I  need  scarcely 
add  that  he  was  not  a  book  collector  in  the  usual 
sense  of  the  word.  He  did  not  care  for  rare 
editions,  and  still  less  did  he  care  about  bindings. 

His  Aldenham  library  was  itself  a  monument 
of  learning  and  industry.1  In  forming  it  he  sought 
to  bring  together  the  books  needed  for  tracing 
and  elucidating  the  growth  of  formative  ideas 
and  of  institutions  in  the  sphere  of  ecclesiastical 
and  civil  polity,  and  to  attain  this  he  made  it 
include  not  only  all  the  best  treatises  handling 
these  large  and  complex  subjects,  but  a  mass  of 
original  records  bearing  as  well  on  the  local 
histories  of  the  cities  and  provinces  of  such 
countries  as  Italy  and  France  as  on  the  general 
history  of  the  great  European  States  and  of  the 
Church.  This  magnificent  design  he  accomplished 
by  his  own  efforts  before  he  was  forty.  What  was 
still  more  surprising,  he  had  found  time  to  use  the 
books.  Nearly  all  of  them  show  by  notes  pencilled 
or  marks  placed  in  them  that  he  had  read  some 
part  of  them,  and  knew  (so  far  as  was  needed  for 
his  purpose)  their  contents. 

Vast  as  his  stores  of  knowledge  were,  they 
were  opened  only  to  his  few  intimate  friends. 
It  was  not  merely  that  he,  as  Tennyson  said  of 
Edmund  Lushington,  “  bore  all  that  weight  of 
learning  lightly,  like  a  flower.”  No  one  could 

1  This  library,  bought  by  Mr.  Andrew  Carnegie,  was  presented  by  him 
to  Mr.  John  Morley,  and  by  the  latter  to  the  University  of  Cambridge. 


3  9°  Biographical  Studies 

have  known  in  general  society  that  he  had  any 
weight  of  learning  to  bear.  He  seemed  to  be 
merely  a  cultivated  and  agreeable  man  of  the 
world,  interested  in  letters  and  politics,  but  dis¬ 
posed  rather  to  listen  than  to  talk.  He  was 
sometimes  enigmatic  and  “  not  incapable  of  cast¬ 
ing  a  pearl  of  irony  in  the  way  of  those  who  would 
mistake  it  for  pebbly  fact.” 1  A  great  capacity 
for  cynicism  remained  a  capacity  only,  because 
joined  to  a  greater  reverence  for  virtue.  In  a 
large  company  he  seldom  put  forth  the  ful¬ 
ness  of  his  powers;  it  was  in  familiar  converse 
with  persons  whose  tastes  resembled  his  own 
that  the  extraordinary  finesse  and  polish  of  his 
mind  revealed  themselves.  His  critical  taste  was 
not  only  delicate,  but  exacting ;  his  judgments 
leaned  to  the  side  of  severity.  No  one  applied 
a  more  stringent  moral  standard  to  the  conduct 
of  men  in  public  affairs,  whether  to-day  or  in 
past  ages.  He  insisted  upon  this,  in  his  inaugural 
lecture  at  Cambridge,  as  the  historian’s  first  duty. 
“  It  is,”  said  he,  “  the  office  of  historical  science  to 
maintain  morality  as  the  sole  impartial  criterion 
of  men  and  things.”  When  he  came  to  estimate 
the  value  of  literary  work  he  seemed  no  less 
hard  to  satisfy.  His  ideal,  both  as  respected 
thoroughness  in  substance  and  finish  in  form, 
was  impossibly  high,  and  he  noted  every  failure 
to  reach  it.  No  one  appreciated  merit  more 

1  The  phrase  is  Professor  Maitland’s. 


Lord  Acton 


39 1 

cordially.  No  one  spoke  with  warmer  admiration 
of  such  distinguished  historians  and  theologians 
as  the  men  whom  I  have  just  named.  But  the 
precision  of  his  thinking  and  the  fastidiousness 
of  his  taste  gave  more  than  a  tinge  of  austerity 
to  his  judgment.  His  opinions  were  peculiarly 
instructive  and  illuminative  to  Englishmen,  be¬ 
cause  he  was  only  half  an  Englishman  in  blood, 
less  than  half  an  Englishman  in  his  training  and 
mental  habits.  He  was  as  much  at  home  in 
Paris  or  Berlin  or  Rome  as  he  was  in  London, 
speaking  the  four  great  languages  with  almost 
equal  facility,  and  knowing  the  men  who  in  each 
of  these  capitals  were  best  worth  knowing.  He 
viewed  our  insular  literature  and  politics  with  the 
detachment  not  only  of  a  Roman  Catholic  among 
Protestants,  of  a  pupil  of  Dollinger  and  Roscher 
among  Oxford  and  Cambridge  men,  but  also  of 
a  citizen  of  the  world,  whose  mastery  of  history 
and  philosophy  had  given  him  an  unusually  wide 
outlook  over  mankind  at  large. 

His  interest  in  the  great  things,  so  far  from 
turning  him  away  from  the  small  things,  seemed 
to  quicken  his  sense  of  their  significance.  It  was 
a  noteworthy  feature  of  his  view  of  history  that 
he  should  have  held  that  the  explanation  of  most 
of  what  has  passed  in  the  light  is  to  be  found  in 
what  has  passed  in  the  dark.  He  was  always 
hunting  for  the  key  to  secret  chambers,  preferring 
to  believe  that  the  grand  staircase  is  only  for  show, 


39 2  Biographical  Studies 

and  meant  to  impose  upon  the  multitude,  while 
the  real  action  goes  on  in  hidden  passages  behind. 
No  one  knew  so  much  of  the  gossip  of  the  past; 
no  one  was  more  intensely  curious  about  the 
gossip  of  the  present,  though  in  his  hands  it 
ceased  to  be  gossip  and  became  unwritten  history. 
One  was  sometimes  disposed  to  wonder  whether 
he  did  not  think  too  much  about  the  backstairs. 
But  he  had  seen  a  great  deal  of  history  in  the 
making. 

The  passion  for  acquiring  knowledge  which 
his  German  education  had  fostered  ended  by 
becoming  a  snare  to  him,  because  it  checked  his 
productive  powers.  Not  that  learning  burdened 
him,  or  clogged  the  soaring  pinions  of  his  mind. 
He  was  master  of  all  he  knew.  But  acquisition 
absorbed  so  much  of  his  time  that  little  was  left 
for  literary  composition.  (Dollinger  saw  the 
danger,  for  he  observed  that  if  Acton  did  not 
write  a  great  book  before  he  reached  the  age 
of  forty,  he  would  never  do  so.)  It  made  him 
think  that  he  could  not  write  on  a  subject  till 
he  had  read  everything,  or  nearly  everything, 
that  others  had  written  about  it.  It  developed 
the  habit  of  making  extracts  from  the  books  he 
read,  a  habit  which  took  the  form  of  accumu¬ 
lating  small  slips  of  paper  on  which  these 
extracts  were  written  in  his  exquisitely  neat  and 
regular  hand,  the  slips  being  arranged  in  card¬ 
board  boxes  according  to  their  subjects.  He 


Lord  Acton 


393 


had  hundreds  of  these  boxes ;  and  though  much 
of  their  contents  must  no  doubt  be  valuable,  the 
time  spent  in  distilling  and  bottling  the  essence 
of  the  books  whence  they  came,  might  have  been 
better  spent  in  giving  to  the  world  the  ideas 
which  they  had  helped  to  evoke  in  his  own  mind. 
If  one  may  take  the  quotations  appended  to 
his  inaugural  lecture  as  a  sample  of  those  he 
had  collected,  many  of  them  were  not  excep¬ 
tionally  valuable,  and  did  little  more  than  show 
how  the  same  idea,  perhaps  no  recondite  one, 
might  be  expressed  in  different  words  by  different 
persons.  When  one  read  some  article  he  had 
written,  garnished  and  even  overloaded  with 
citations,  one  often  felt  that  his  own  part  was 
better,  both  in  substance  and  in  form,  than  the 
passages  which  he  had  culled  from  his  prede¬ 
cessors.  It  becomes  daily  more  than  ever  true 
that  the  secret  of  historical  composition  is  to 
know  what  to  neglect,  since  in  our  time  it  has 
become  impossible  to  exhaust  the  literature  of 
most  subjects,  and,  as  respects  the  last  two 
centuries,  to  exhaust  even  the  original  authorities. 
Yet  how  shall  one  know  what  to  neglect  without 
at  least  a  glance  of  inspection  ?  Acton  was  un¬ 
willing  to  neglect  anything;  and  his  ardour  for 
completeness  drew  him  into  a  policy  fit  only  for 
one  who  could  expect  to  live  three  lives  of  mortal 
men. 

The  love  of  knowledge  grew  upon  him  till 


394  Biographical  Studies 

it  became  a  passion  of  the  intellect,  a  thirst  like 
the  thirst  for  water  in  a  parching  desert.  What 
he  sought  to  know  was  not  facts  only,  but  facts 
in  their  relations  to  principles,  facts  so  disposed 
and  fitly  joined  together  as  to  become  the  cause¬ 
way  over  which  the  road  to  truth  shall  pass. 
For  this  purpose  events  were  in  his  view  not 
more  important  than  the  thoughts  of  men,  because 
discursive  and  creative  thought  was  to  him  the 
ruling  factor  in  history.  Hence  books  must  be 
known  —  books  of  philosophic  creation,  books  of 
philosophic  reflection,  no  less  than  those  which 
record  what  has  happened.  The  danger  of  this 
conception  is  that  everything  men  have  said  or 
written,  as  well  as  everything  they  have  done, 
becomes  a  possibly  significant  fact ;  and  thus  the 
search  for  truth  becomes  endless  because  the 
materials  are  inexhaustible. 

He  expressed  in  striking  words,  prefixed  to 
a  list  of  books  suggested  for  a  young  man’s 
perusal,  his  view  of  the  aim  of  a  course  of 
historical  reading.  It  is  “  to  give  force  and 
fulness  and  clearness  and  sincerity  and  indepen¬ 
dence  and  elevation  and  generosity  and  serenity 
to  his  mind,  that  he  may  know  the  method  and 
law  of  the  process  by  which  error  is  conquered 
and  truth  is  won,  discerning  knowledge  from 
probability  and  prejudice  from  belief,  that  he 
may  learn  to  master  what  he  rejects  as  fully  as 
what  he  adopts,  that  he  may  understand  the 


Lord  Acton 


395 

origin  as  well  as  the  strength  and  vitality  of 
systems  and  the  better  motive  of  men  who  are 
wrong  .  .  .  and  to  steel  him  against  the  charm 
of  literary  beauty  and  talent.” 1 

Neither  his  passion  for  facts  nor  his  apprecia¬ 
tion  of  style  and  form  made  him  decline  to  the 
right  hand  or  to  the  left  from  the  true  position 
of  a  historian.  He  set  little  store  upon  what  is 
called  literary  excellence,  and  would  often  reply, 
when  questioned  as  to  the  merits  of  some  book 
bearing  an  eminent  name,  “  You  need  not  read 
it ;  it  adds  nothing  to  what  we  knew.”  He  valued 
facts  only  so  far  as  they  went  to  establish  a  prin¬ 
ciple  or  explained  the  course  of  events.  It  was 
really  not  so  much  in  the  range  of  his  knowledge 
as  in  the  profundity  and  precision  of  his  thought 
that  his  greatness  lay. 

His  somewhat  overstrained  conscientiousness, 
coupled  with  the  practically  unattainable  ideal  of 
finish  and  form  which  he  set  before  himself,  made 
him  less  and  less  disposed  to  literary  production. 
No  man  of  first-rate  powers  has  in  our  time 
left  so  little  by  which  posterity  may  judge  those 
powers.  In  his  early  life,  when  for  a  time  he 
edited  the  Home  and  Foreign  Review ,  and  when 
he  was  connected  with  the  Rambler  and  the 
North  British  Review ,  he  wrote  frequently;  and 
even  between  1868  and  1890  he  contributed  to 

1  I  owe  this  quotation  to  a  letter  of  Sir  M.  E.  Grant  Duff’s  published 
soon  after  Lord  Acton’s  death. 


396  Biographical  Studies 

the  press  some  few  historical  essays  and  a  num¬ 
ber  of  anonymous  letters.  But  the  aversion  to 
creative  work  seemed  to  grow  on  him.  About 
1890  he  so  far  yielded  to  the  urgency  of  a  few 
friends  as  to  promise  to  reissue  a  number  of  his 
essays  in  a  volume,  but,  after  rewriting  and  polish¬ 
ing  these  essays  during  several  years,  he  aban¬ 
doned  the  scheme  altogether.  In  1882  he  had 
already  drawn  out  a  plan  for  a  comprehensive 
history  of  Liberty.  But  this  plan  also  he 
dropped,  because  the  more  he  read  with  a  view 
to  undertaking  it  the  more  he  wished  to  read, 
and  the  vaster  did  the  enterprise  seem  to  loom 
up  before  him.  With  him,  as  with  many  men 
who  cherish  high  literary  ideals,  the  Better  proved 
to  be  the  enemy  of  the  Good. 

Twenty  years  ago,  late  at  night,  in  his  library 
at  Cannes,  he  expounded  to  me  his  view  of  how 
such  a  history  of  Liberty  might  be  written,  and 
in  what  wise  it  might  be  made  the  central  thread 
of  all  history.  He  spoke  for  six  or  seven  minutes 
only;  but  he  spoke  like  a  man  inspired,  seeming 
as  if,  from  some  mountain  summit  high  in  air,  he 
saw  beneath  him  the  far  winding  path  of  human 
progress  from  dim  Cimmerian  shores  of  pre¬ 
historic  shadow  into  the  fuller  yet  broken  and 
fitful  light  of  the  modern  time.  The  eloquence 
was  splendid,  but  greater  than  the  eloquence  was 
the  penetrating  vision  which  discerned  through 
all  events  and  in  all  ages  the  play  of  those  moral 


Lord  Acton 


397 

forces,  now  creating,  now  destroying,  always 
transmuting,  which  had  moulded  and  remoulded 
institutions,  and  had  given  to  the  human  spirit  its 
ceaselessly-changing  forms  of  energy.  It  was  as 
if  the  whole  landscape  of  history  had  been  sud¬ 
denly  lit  up  by  a  burst  of  sunlight.  I  have  never 
heard  from  any  other  lips  any  discourse  like  this, 
nor  from  his  did  I  ever  hear  the  like  again. 

His  style  suffered  in  his  later  days  from 
the  abundance  of  the  interspersed  citations,  and 
from  the  overfulness  and  subtlety  of  the  thought, 
which  occasionally  led  to  obscurity.  But  when 
he  handled  a  topic  in  which  learning  was  not  re¬ 
quired,  his  style  was  clear,  pointed,  and  incisive, 
sometimes  epigrammatic.  Several  years  ago  he 
wrote  in  a  monthly  magazine  a  short  article  upon 
a  biography  of  one  of  his  contemporaries  which 
showed  how  admirable  a  master  he  was  of  polished 
diction  and  penetrating  analysis,  and  made  one 
wish  that  he  had  more  frequently  consented  to 
dash  off  light  work  in  a  quick  unstudied  way. 

To  the  work  of  a  University  professor  he  came 
too  late  to  acquire  the  art  of  fluent  and  forcible 
oral  discourse,  nor  was  the  character  of  his  mind, 
with  its  striving  after  a  flawless  exactitude  of 
statement,  altogether  fitted  for  the  function  of 
presenting  broad  summaries  of  facts  to  a  youthful 
audience.  His  predecessor  in  the  Cambridge 
chair  of  history,  Sir  John  Seeley,  with  less  know¬ 
ledge,  less  subtlety,  and  less  originality,  had  in 


398  Biographical  Studies 

larger  measure  the  gift  of  oral  exposition  and 
the  power  of  putting  points,  whether  by  speech 
or  by  writing,  in  a  clear  and  telling  way.  No  one, 
indeed,  since  Macaulay  has  been  a  better  point- 
putter  than  Seeley  was.  But  Acton’s  lectures 
(read  from  MS.)  were  models  of  lucid  and  stately 
narrative  informed  by  fulness  of  thought;  and 
they  were  so  delivered  as  to  express  the  feeling 
which  each  event  had  evoked  in  his  own  mind. 
That  sternness  of  character  which  revealed  itself 
in  his  judgments  of  men  and  books  never  affected 
his  relations  to  his  pupils.  Precious  as  his  time 
was,  he  gave  it  generously,  encouraging  them 
to  come  to  him  for  help  and  counsel.  They 
were  awed  by  the  majesty  of  his  learning.  Said 
one  of  them  to  me,  “  When  Lord  Acton  answers 
a  question  put  to  him,  I  feel  as  if  I  were  look¬ 
ing  at  a  pyramid.  I  see  the  point  of  it  clear 
and  sharp,  but  I  see  also  the  vast  subjacent 
mass  of  solid  knowledge.”  They  perceived, 
moreover,  that  to  him  History  and  Philosophy 
were  not  two  things  but  one,  and  perceived  that 
of  History  as  well  as  of  divine  Philosophy  it  may 
be  said  that  she  too  is  “charming,  and  musical  as 
is  Apollo’s  lute.”  Thus  the  impression  produced 
in  the  University  by  the  amplitude  of  Lord  Acton’s 
views,  by  the  range  of  his  learning,  by  the  liber¬ 
ality  of  his  spirit  and  his  unfailing  devotion  to 
truth  and  to  truth  alone,  was  deep  and  fruitful. 

When  they  wished  that  he  had  given  to  the  world 


Lord  Acton 


399 


more  of  his  wisdom,  his  friends  did  not  under¬ 
value  a  life  which  was  in  itself  a  rare  and  exquisite 
product  of  favouring  nature  and  unwearied  dili¬ 
gence.  They  only  regretted  that  the  influence  of 
his  ideas,  of  his  methods,  and  of  his  spirit,  had 
not  been  more  widely  diffused  in  an  enduring 
form.  It  was  as  when  a  plant  unknown  elsewhere 
grows  on  some  remote  isle  where  ships  seldom 
touch.  Few  see  the  beauty  of  the  flower,  and 
here  death  came  before  the  seed  could  be  gathered 
to  be  scattered  in  receptive  soil. 

To  most  men  Lord  Acton  seemed  reserved  as 
well  as  remote,  presenting  a  smooth  and  shining 
surface  beneath  which  it  was  hard  to  penetrate. 
He  avoided  publicity  and  popularity  with  the 
tranquil  dignity  of  one  for  whom  the  world  of 
knowledge  and  speculation  was  more  than  suffi¬ 
cient.  But  he  was  a  loyal  friend,  affectionate  to 
his  intimates,  gracious  in  his  manners,  blameless 
in  all  the  relations  of  life.  Comparatively  few 
of  his  countrymen  knew  his  name,  and  those  who 
did  thought  of  him  chiefly  as  the  confidant  of  Mr. 
Gladstone,  and  as  the  most  remarkable  instance 
of  a  sincere  and  steadfast  Roman  Catholic  who 
was  a  Liberal  alike  in  politics  and  in  theology. 
But  those  who  had  been  admitted  to  his  friend¬ 
ship  recognised  him  as  one  of  the  finest  in¬ 
telligences  of  his  generation,  an  unsurpassed, 
and  indeed  a  scarcely  rivalled,  master  of  every 
subject  which  he  touched. 


WILLIAM  EWART  GLADSTONE 

Of  no  man  who  has  lived  in  our  times  is  it  so 
hard  to  speak  in  a  concise  and  summary  fashion 
as  of  Mr.  Gladstone.  For  fifty  years  he  was  so 
closely  associated  with  the  public  affairs  of  his 
country  that  the  record  of  his  parliamentary  life 
is  virtually  an  outline  of  English  political  history 
during  those  years.  His  activity  spread  itself  out 
over  many  fields.  He  was  the  author  of  several 
learned  and  thoughtful  books,  and  of  a  multitude 
of  articles  upon  all  sorts  of  subjects.  He  showed 
himself  as  eagerly  interested  in  matters  of  classi¬ 
cal  scholarship  and  Christian  doctrine  and  eccle¬ 
siastical  history  as  in  questions  of  national  finance 
and  foreign  policy.  No  account  of  him  could  be 
complete  without  reviewing  his  actions  and 
estimating  the  results  of  his  work  in  all  these 
directions. 

But  the  difficulty  of  describing  and  judging 
him  goes  deeper.  His  was  a  singularly  complex 
nature,  whose  threads  it  was  hard  to  unravel. 
His  individuality  was  extremely  strong.  All  that 
he  said  or  did  bore  its  impress.  Yet  it  was  an 
individuality  so  far  from  being  self-consistent 


400 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  401 

as  sometimes  to  seem  a  bundle  of  opposite 
qualities  capriciously  united  in  a  single  person. 
He  might  with  equal  truth  have  been  called,  and 
he  was  in  fact  called,  a  conservative  and  a  revolu¬ 
tionary.  He  was  dangerously  impulsive,  and  had 
frequently  to  suffer  for  his  impulsiveness ;  yet 
he  was  also  not  merely  prudent  and  cautious, 
but  so  astute  as  to  have  been  accused  of  craft 
and  dissimulation.  So  great  was  his  respect 
for  tradition  that  he  clung  to  views  regard¬ 
ing  the  authorship  of  the  Homeric  poems  and 
the  date  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testa¬ 
ment  which  nearly  all  competent  specialists 
have  now  rejected.  So  bold  was  he  in  prac¬ 
tical  matters  that  he  carried  through  sweeping 
changes  in  the  British  constitution,  changed  the 
course  of  English  policy  in  the  nearer  East, 
overthrew  an  established  church  in  one  part  of 
the  United  Kingdom,  and  committed  himself 
in  principle  to  the  overthrow  of  two  other 
established  churches  in  other  parts.  He  came 
near  to  being  a  Roman  Catholic  in  his  religious 
opinions,  yet  was  for  the  last  twenty  years  of 
his  life  the  trusted  leader  of  the  English  Prot¬ 
estant  Nonconformists  and  the  Scottish  Pres¬ 
byterians.  No  one  who  knew  him  intimately 
doubted  his  conscientious  sincerity  and  earnest¬ 
ness,  yet  four-fifths  of  the  English  upper  classes 
were  in  his  later  years  wont  to  regard  him  as  a 
self-interested  schemer  who  would  sacrifice  his 


402  Biographical  Studies 

country  to  his  ambition.  Though  he  loved 
general  principles,  and  often  soared  out  of  the 
sight  of  his  audience  when  discussing  them,  he 
generally  ended  by  deciding  upon  points  of  detail 
the  question  at  issue.  He  was  at  different  times 
of  his  life  the  defender  and  the  assailant  of  the 
same  institutions,  yet  scarcely  seemed  incon¬ 
sistent  in  doing  opposite  things,  because  his 
methods  and  his  arguments  preserved  the  same 
type  and  colour  throughout.  Those  who  had 
at  the  beginning  of  his  career  discerned  in  him 
the  capacity  for  such  diversities  and  contra¬ 
dictions  would  probably  have  predicted  that  they 
must  wreck  it  by  making  his  purposes  fluctuating 
and  his  course  erratic.  Such  a  prediction  might 
have  proved  true  of  any  one  with  less  firmness 
of  will  and  less  intensity  of  temper.  It  was  the 
persistent  heat  and  vehemence  of  his  character, 
the  sustained  passion  which  he  threw  into  the 
pursuit  of  the  object  on  which  he  was  for  the 
moment  bent,  that  fused  these  dissimilar  qualities 
and  made  them  appear  to  contribute  to  and  in¬ 
crease  the  total  force  which  he  exerted. 

The  circumstances  of  Mr.  Gladstone’s  political 
career  help  to  explain,  or,  at  any  rate,  will  furnish 
occasion  for  the  attempt  to  explain,  this  com¬ 
plexity  and  variety  of  character.  But  before  I 
come  to  his  manhood  it  is  convenient  to  advert 
to  three  conditions  whose  influence  on  him  was 
profound  —  the  first  his  Scottish  blood,  the  second 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  403 

his  Oxford  education,  the  third  his  apprenticeship 
to  public  life  under  Sir  Robert  Peel. 

Theories  of  character  based  on  race  differences 
are  dangerous,  because  they  are  as  hard  to 
test  as  they  are  easy  to  form.  Still,  we  all 
know  that  there  are  specific  qualities  and  ten¬ 
dencies  usually  found  in  the  minds  of  men  of 
certain  stocks,  just  as  there  are  peculiarities  in 
their  faces  or  in  their  speech.  Mr.  Gladstone 
was  born  and  brought  up  in  Liverpool,  and 
always  retained  a  touch  of  Lancashire  accent. 
But,  as  he  was  fond  of  saying,  every  drop  of 
blood  in  his  veins  was  Scotch.  His  father’s 
family  belonged  to  the  Scottish  Lowlands,  and 
came  from  the  neighbourhood  of  Biggar,  in  the 
Upper  Ward  of  Lanarkshire,  where  the  ruined 
walls  of  Gledstanes 1  —  “  the  kite’s  rock  ”  —  may 
still  be  seen.  His  mother  was  of  Highland  ex¬ 
traction,  by  name  Robertson,  from  Dingwall,  in 
Ross-shire.  Thus  he  was  not  only  a  Scot,  but  a 
Scot  with  a  strong  infusion  of  the  Celtic  element, 
the  element  whence  the  Scotch  derive  most  of 
what  distinguishes  them  from  the  northern  Eng¬ 
lish.  The  Scot  is  more  excitable,  more  easily 
brought  to  a  glow  of  passion,  more  apt  to  be 
eagerly  absorbed  in  one  thing  at  a  time.  He 
is  also  more  fond  of  exerting  his  intellect  on 
abstractions.  It  is  not  merely  that  the  taste  for 

1  “  Gled  ”  is  a  kite  or  hawk.  The  name  was  Gladstones  till  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone’s  father  dropped  the  final  s. 


404  Biographical  Studies 

metaphysical  theology  is  commoner  in  Scotland 
than  in  England,  but  that  the  Scotch  have  a 
stronger  relish  for  general  principles.  They 
like  to  set  out  by  ascertaining  and  defining  such 
principles,  and  then  to  pursue  a  series  of  logical 
deductions  from  them.  They  are,  therefore, 
bolder  reasoners  than  the  English,  less  content 
to  remain  in  the  region  of  concrete  facts,  more 
prone  to  throw  themselves  into  the  construc¬ 
tion  of  a  body  of  speculative  doctrine.  The 
Englishman  is  apt  to  plume  himself  on  being 
right  in  spite  of  logic;  the  Scotchman  likes 
to  think  that  it  is  through  logic  he  has  reached 
his  results,  and  that  he  can  by  logic  defend 
them.  These  are  qualities  which  Mr.  Gladstone 
drew  from  his  Scottish  blood.  He  had  a  keen 
enjoyment  of  the  processes  of  dialectic.  He 
loved  to  get  hold  of  an  abstract  principle  and  to 
derive  all  sorts  of  conclusions  from  it.  He  was 
wont  to  begin  the  discussion  of  a  question  by 
laying  down  two  or  three  sweeping  propositions 
covering  the  subject  as  a  whole,  and  would  then 
proceed  to  draw  from  these  others  which  he 
could  apply  to  the  particular  matter  in  hand. 
His  well-stored  memory  and  boundless  ingenuity 
made  the  discovery  of  such  general  propositions 
so  easy  a  task  that  a  method  in  itself  agreeable 
sometimes  appeared  to  be  carried  to  excess.  He 
frequently  arrived  at  conclusions  which  the  judg¬ 
ment  of  the  common-sense  auditor  did  not 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  405 

approve,  because,  although  they  seemed  to  have 
been  legitimately  deduced  from  the  general 
principles  just  enunciated,  they  were  somehow 
at  variance  with  the  plain  teaching  of  the  facts. 
At  such  moments  one  felt  that  the  man  who 
was  fascinating  but  perplexing  Englishmen  by 
his  subtlety  was  not  himself  an  Englishman 
in  mental  quality,  but  had  the  love  for  abstrac¬ 
tions  and  refinements  and  dialectical  analysis 
which  characterises  the  Scotch  intellect.  He 
had  also  a  large  measure  of  that  warmth  and 
vehemence,  called  in  the  sixteenth  century  the 
perfervidum,  ingenium  Scotorum,  which  belong  to 
the  Scottish  temperament,  and  particularly  to 
the  Celtic  Scot.  He  kindled  quickly,  and  when 
kindled,  he  shot  forth  a  strong  and  brilliant  flame. 
To  any  one  with  less  power  of  self-control  such 
intensity  of  emotion  as  he  frequently  showed 
would  have  been  dangerous ;  nor  did  this  ex¬ 
citability  fail,  even  with  him,  to  prompt  words 
and  acts  which  a  cooler  judgment  would  have 
disapproved.  But  it  gave  that  spontaneity  which 
was  one  of  the  charms  of  his  nature  ;  it  produced 
that  impression  of  profound  earnestness  and  of 
resistless  force  which  raised  him  out  of  the  rank 
of  ordinary  statesmen.  The  rush  of  emotion 
swelling  fast  and  full  seemed  to  turn  the  whole 
stream  of  intellectual  effort  into  whatever  channel 
lay  at  the  moment  nearest. 

With  these  Scottish  qualities,  Mr.  Gladstone 


406  Biographical  Studies 

was  brought  up  at  school  and  college  (Eton 
and  Christ  Church)  among  Englishmen,  and  re¬ 
ceived  at  Oxford,  then  lately  awakened  from  a 
long  torpor,  a  bias  and  tendency  which  never 
thereafter  ceased  to  affect  him.  The  so-called 
“  Oxford  Movement,”  which  afterwards  obtained 
the  name  of  Tractarianism  and  carried  Newman 
and  Manning,  together  with  other  less  famous 
leaders,  on  to  Rome,  had  not  yet,  in  1831,  when 
Mr.  Gladstone  obtained  his  degree  with  double 
first-class  honours,  taken  visible  shape,  or  be¬ 
come,  so  to  speak,  conscious  of  its  own  pur¬ 
poses.  But  its  doctrinal  views,  its  peculiar  vein 
of  religious  sentiment,  its  respect  for  antiquity 
and  tradition,  its  proneness  to  casuistry,  its  taste 
for  symbolism,  were  already  in  the  air  as  in¬ 
fluences  working  on  the  more  susceptible  of  the 
younger  minds.  On  Mr.  Gladstone  they  told 
with  full  force.  He  became,  and  never  ceased 
to  be,  not  merely  a  High  Churchman,  but  what 
may  be  called  an  Anglo-Catholic,  in  his  theology, 
deferential  not  only  to  ecclesiastical  tradition, 
but  to  the  living  voice  of  the  Visible  Church, 
revering  the  priesthood  as  the  recipients  (if 
duly  ordained)  of  a  special  grace  and  peculiar 
powers,  attaching  great  importance  to  the  sacra¬ 
ments,  feeling  himself  nearer  to  the  Church  of 
Rome,  despite  what  he  deemed  her  corruptions, 
than  to  any  of  the  non-Episcopal  Protestant 
churches.  Henceforth  his  interests  in  life  were 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  407 


as  much  ecclesiastical  as  political.  For  a  time 
he  desired  to  be  ordained  a  clergyman.  Had 
this  wish,  abandoned  in  deference  to  his  father’s 
advice,  been  carried  out,  he  must  eventually  have 
become  a  leading  figure  in  the  Church  of  Eng¬ 
land  and  have  sensibly  affected  her  recent  history. 
The  later  stages  in  his  career  drew  him  away 
from  the  main  current  of  political  opinion  within 
that  church.  He  who  had  been  the  strongest 
advocate  of  the  principle  of  the  State  establish¬ 
ment  of  religion  came  to  be  the  chief  actor  in 
the  disestablishment  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal 
Church  in  Ireland,  and  a  supporter  of  the  policy 
of  disestablishment  in  Scotland  and  in  Wales. 
But  the  colour  which  these  Oxford  years  gave 
to  his  mind  and  thoughts  was  never  effaced. 
While  they  widened  the  range  of  his  interests 
and  deepened  his  moral  earnestness,  they  at  the 
same  time  confirmed  his  natural  bent  toward 
over-subtle  distinctions  and  fine-drawn  reasonings, 
and  put  him  out  of  sympathy  not  only  with  the 
attitude  of  the  average  Englishman,  who  is  essen¬ 
tially  a  Protestant  —  that  is  to  say,  averse  to  sacer¬ 
dotalism,  and  suspicious  of  any  other  religious 
authority  than  that  of  the  Bible  and  the  indi¬ 
vidual  conscience  —  but  also  with  two  of  the 
strongest  influences  of  our  time,  the  influence 
of  the  sciences  of  nature,  and  the  influence  of 
historical  criticism.  Mr.  Gladstone,  though  too 
wise  to  rail  at  science,  as  many  religious  men 


\ 


40  8  Biographical  Studies 

did  till  within  the  last  few  years,  could  never 
quite  reconcile  himself  either  to  the  conclusions 
of  geology  and  zoology  regarding  the  history  of 
the  physical  world  and  the  creatures  which  in¬ 
habit  it,  or  to  modern  methods  of  critical  inquiry 
as  applied  to  Scripture  and  to  ancient  literature 
generally.  The  training  which  Oxford  then 
gave,  stimulating  as  it  was,  and  free  from  the 
modern  error  of  over-specialisation,  was  defective 
in  omitting  the  experimental  sciences,  and  in 
laying  undue  stress  upon  the  study  of  language. 
A  proneness  to  dwell  on  verbal  distinctions  and 
to  trust  overmuch  to  the  analysis  of  terms  as  a 
means  of  reaching  the  truth  of  things  is  notice¬ 
able  in  many  eminent  Oxford  writers  of  that  and 
the  next  succeeding  generation  —  some  of  them, 
like  the  illustrious  F.  D.  Maurice,  far  removed 
from  Cardinal  Newman  and  Mr.  Gladstone  in 
theological  opinion. 

When,  bringing  with  him  a  brilliant  University 
reputation,  he  entered  the  House  of  Commons  at 
the  age  of  twenty-three,  Sir  Robert  Peel  was 
leading  the  Tory  party  with  an  authority  and 
ability  rarely  surpassed  in  the  annals  of  Parlia¬ 
ment.  Within  two  years  the  young  man  was 
admitted  into  the  short-lived  Tory  ministry  of 
1834,  and  soon  proved  himself  a  promising 
lieutenant  of  the  experienced  chief.  Peel  was  an 
eminently  wary  man,  alive  to  the  necessity  of 
watching  the  signs  of  the  times,  of  studying  and 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  409 

interpreting  the  changeful  phases  of  public 
opinion.  Yet  he  always  kept  his  own  counsel. 
Even  when  he  perceived  that  the  policy  he 
had  hitherto  followed  would  need  to  be  modified, 
Peel  continued  to  use  guarded  language  and 
did  not  publicly  commit  himself  to  change  till  it 
was  plain  that  the  fitting  moment  had  arrived. 
He  was,  moreover,  a  master  of  detail,  slow  to 
propound  a  plan  until  he  had  seen  how  its  out¬ 
lines  were  to  be  filled  up  by  appropriate  devices 
for  carrying  it  out  in  practice.  These  qualities 
and  habits  of  the  minister  profoundly  affected 
his  disciple.  They  became  part  of  the  texture  of 
Mr.  Gladstone’s  political  character,  and  in  his 
case,  as  in  that  of  Peel,  they  sometimes  brought 
censure  upon  him,  as  having  locked  up  too  long 
within  his  breast  views  or  purposes  which  he 
thought  it  unwise  to  disclose  till  effect  could  be 
forthwith  given  to  them.  Such  reserve,  such  a 
guarded  attitude  and  tenderness  for  existing  in¬ 
stitutions,  may  have  been  not  altogether  natural 
to  Mr.  Gladstone’s  mind,  but  due  partly  to  the 
influence  of  Peel,  partly  to  the  tendency  to 
hold  by  tradition  and  the  established  order 
which  reverence  for  Christian  antiquity  and  faith 
in  the  dogmatic  teachings  of  the  Church  had 
planted  deep  in  his  soul.  The  contrast  between 
Mr.  Gladstone’s  caution  and  respect  for  facts  on 
the  one  hand,  and  his  reforming  fervour  on  the 
other,  like  the  contrast  which  ultimately  appeared 


410  Biographical  Studies 

between  his  sacerdotal  tendencies  and  his  politi¬ 
cal  liberalism,  contributed  to  make  his  character 
perplexing  and  to  expose  his  conduct  to  the 
charge  of  inconsistency.  Inconsistent,  in  the 
proper  sense  of  the  word,  he  was  not,  much 
less  changeable.  He  was  really,  in  his  funda¬ 
mental  convictions  and  the  main  habits  of  his 
mind,  one  of  the  most  tenacious  and  persistent 
of  men.  ^But  there  were  always  at  work  in  him 
two  tendencies.  One  was  the  speculative  desire 
to  probe  everything  to  the  bottom,  to  try  it 
by  the  light  of  general  principles  and  logic,  and 
when  it  failed  to  stand  this  test,  to  reject  it. 
The  other  was  the  sense  of  the  complexity  of 
existing  social  and  political  arrangements,  and  of 
the  risk  of  disturbing  any  one  part  of  them  until 
the  time  had  arrived  for  resettling  other  parts 
also.  Every  statesman  feels  both  these  sides  to 
every  concrete  question  of  reform.  No  one  has 
set  them  forth  more  cogently,  and  in  particular 
no  one  has  more  earnestly  dwelt  on  the  neces¬ 
sity  for  the  latter  side,  than  the  most  profound 
thinker  among  British  statesmen,  Edmund  Burke. 
When  Mr.  Gladstone  stated  either  side  with  his 
incomparable  force,  people  forgot  that  there  was 
another  side  which  would  be  no  less  vividly  present 
to  him  at  some  other  moment.  He  was  not  only, 
like  all  successful  parliamentarians,  necessarily 
something  of  an  opportunist,  though  perhaps  less 
so  than  his  master,  but  was  moved  by  emotion 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  41 1 

more  than  most  statesmen,  and  certainly  more 
than  Peel.  The  relative  strength  with  which  the 
need  for  drastic  reform  or  the  need  for  watch¬ 
ful  conservatism,  as  the  case  might  be,  presented 
itself  to  his  mind  depended  largely  upon  the 
weight  which  his  emotions  cast  into  one  or 
other  scale,  and  this  emotional  element  made  it 
difficult  to  forecast  his  course.  Thus  his  action 
in  public  life  was  the  result  of  influences  differing 
widely  in  their  origin,  influences,  moreover,  which 
could  be  duly  appreciated  only  by  those  who 
knew  him  intimately. 

Whoever  has  followed  his  political  career  has 
been  struck  by  the  sharp  divergence  of  the  views 
entertained  by  his  fellow-countrymen  about  one 
who  had  been  for  so  long  a  period  under  their 
observation.  That  he  was  possessed  of  bound¬ 
less  energy  and  brilliant  eloquence  all  agreed. 
But  agreement  went  no  further.  One  section  of 
the  nation  accused  him  of  sophistry,  of  unwisdom, 
of  a  want  of  patriotism,  of  a  lust  for  power.  The 
other  section  not  only  repelled  these  charges, 
but  admired  in  him  a  conscientiousness  and  a 
moral  enthusiasm  such  as  no  political  leader  had 
shown  for  centuries.  When  the  qualities  of  his 
mind  and  the  aptitudes  for  politics  which  he 
showed  have  been  briefly  examined,  it  will  be 
fitting  to  return  to  these  divergent  views  of  his 
character,  and  endeavour  to  discover  which  of 
them  contains  the  larger  measure  of  truth. 


412  Biographical  Studies 

Meantime  let  it  suffice  to  say  that  among  the 
reasons  that  led  men  to  misjudge  him,  this  union 
in  one  person  of  opposite  qualities  was  the  chief. 
He  was  rather  two  men  than  one.  Passionate 
and  impulsive  on  the  emotional  side  of  his  nature, 
he  was  cautious  and  conservative  on  the  intellec¬ 
tual.  Few  understood  the  conjunction;  still 
fewer  saw  how  much  of  what  was  perplexing 
in  his  conduct  it  explained. 

Mr.  Gladstone  sat  for  sixty-three  years  (1833- 
(  1895)  in  Parliament,  was  for  twenty-eight  years 
(1866-1894)  the  leader  of  his  party,  and  was  four 
times  Prime  Minister.  He  began  as  a  high 
Tory,  remained  about  fifteen  years  in  that  camp, 
was  then  led  by  the  split  between  Peel  and  the 
Protectionists  to  take  up  an  intermediate  position, 
and  finally  was  forced  to  cast  in  his  lot  with  the 
Liberals,  for  in  England,  as  in  America,  third 
parties  seldom  endure.  No  parliamentary  career 
in  English  annals  is  comparable  to  his  for  its 
length  and  variety ;  and  of  those  who  saw  its 
close  in  the  House  of  Commons,  there  was  only 
one  man,  Mr.  Villiers  (who  died  in  January  1898), 
who  could  remember  its  beginning.  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone  had  been  opposed  in  1833  to  men  who  might 
have  been  his  grandfathers;  he  was  opposed  in 
1894  to  men  who  might  have  been  his  grand¬ 
children.  It  is  no  part  of  my  design  to  describe 
or  comment  on  the  events  of  such  a  life.  All  that 
can  be  done  here  is  to  indicate  the  more  salient 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  413 

characteristics  which  a  study  of  his  career  as  a 
statesman  and  a  parliamentarian  sets  before  us. 
/  The  most  remarkable  of  these  characteristics 
was  the  openness,  freshness,  and  eagerness  of 
mind  which  he  preserved  down  to  the  end  of 
his  life.  Most  men  form  few  new  opinions 
after  thirty-five,  just  as  they  form  few  new 
intimacies.  Intellectual  curiosity  may  remain 
even  after  fifty,  but  its  range  narrows  as  a  man 
abandons  the  hope  of  attaining  any  thorough 
knowledge  of  subjects  other  than  those  which 
make  the  main  business  of  his  life.  It  is  impos¬ 
sible  to  follow  the  progress  of  all  the  new  ideas 
that  are  set  afloat  in  the  world,  impossible  to 
be  always  examining  the  foundations  of  one’s 
political  or  religious  beliefs.  Repeated  disap¬ 
pointments  and  disillusionments  make  a  man 
expect  less  from  changes  the  older  he  grows ; 
while  indolence  deters  him  from  entering  upon 
new  enterprises.  None  of  these  causes  seemed 
to  affect  Mr.  Gladstone.  He  was  as  much 
excited  over  a  new  book  (such  as  Cardinal 
Manning’s  Life)  at  eighty-four  as  when  at 
fourteen  he  insisted  on  compelling  little  Arthur 
Stanley  (afterwards  Dean  of  Westminster,  and 
then  aged  nine)  forthwith  to  procure  and  study 
Gray’s  poems,  which  he  had  just  perused  himself. 
His  reading  covered  almost  the  whole  field 
[  of  literature,  except  physical  and  mathematical 
\  science.  While  frequently  declaring  that  he 


414  Biographical  Studies 

must  confine  his  political  thinking  and  leader¬ 
ship  to  a  few  subjects,  he  was  so  observant  of 
current  events  that  the  course  of  talk  brought 
up  scarcely  any  topic  in  which  he  did  not  seem 
to  know  what  was  the  latest  thing  that  had 
been  said  or  done.  Neither  the  lassitude  nor 
the  prejudices  that  usually  accompany  old  age 
prevented  him  from  giving  a  fair  consideration  to 
any  new  doctrines.  But  though  his  intellect  was 
restlessly  at  work,  and  though  his  curiosity  dis¬ 
posed  him  to  relish  novelties,  except  in  theology, 
that  bottom  rock  in  his  mind  of  caution  and  re¬ 
serve,  which  has  already  been  referred  to,  made 
him  refuse  to  part  with  old  views  even  when  he 
was  beginning  to  accept  new  ones.  He  allowed 
both  to  “  lie  on  the  table  ”  together,  and  while 
declaring  himself  open  to  conviction,  felt  it 
safer  to  speak  and  act  on  the  old  lines  till  the 
process  of  conviction  had  been  completed.  It 
took  fourteen  years,  from  1846  to  i860,  to  carry 
him  from  the  Conservative  into  the  Liberal  camp. 
It  took  five  stormy  years  to  bring  him  round  to 
Irish  Home  Rule,  though  his  mind  was  constantly 
occupied  with  the  subject  from  1880  to  1885, 
and  those  who  watched  him  closely  saw  that 
the  process  had  advanced  a  long  way  even  in 
1882.  And  as  regards  ecclesiastical  establish¬ 
ments,  having  written  a  book  in  1838  as  a  warm 
advocate  of  State  churches,  it  was  not  till  1867 
that  he  adopted  the  policy  of  disestablishment 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  415 

for  Ireland,  not  till  1890  that  he  declared  himself 
ready  to  apply  that  policy  in  Wales  and  Scotland 
also. 

''Both  these  qualities  —  his  disposition  to  revise 
Ids  opinions  in  the  light  of  new  arguments  and 
changing  conditions,  and  the  silence  he  main¬ 
tained  till  the  process  of  revision  had  been 
completed  —  exposed  him  to  misconstruction. 
Commonplace  men,  unwont  to  give  serious 
scrutiny  to  their  opinions,  ascribed  his  changes 
to  self-interest,  or  at  best  regarded  them  as  the 
index  of  an  unstable  purpose.  Dull  men  could 
not  understand  why  he  should  have  forborne  to 
set  forth  all  that  was  passing  in  his  mind,  and  saw 
little  difference  between  reticence  and  dishonesty. 
In  so  far  as  they  shook  public  confidence,  these 
characteristics  injured  him  in  his  statesman’s 
work.  Yet  the  loss  was  outweighed  by  the  gain. 
In  a  country  where  opinion  is  active  and  change¬ 
ful,  where  the  economic  conditions  that  legislation 
has  to  deal  with  are  in  a  state  of  perpetual  flux, 
where  the  balance  of  power  between  the  upper, 
the  middle,  and  the  poorer  classes  has  been  swiftly 
altering  during  the  last  seventy  years,  no  states¬ 
man  can  continue  to  serve  the  public  if  he  adheres 
obstinately  to  the  doctrines  with  which  he  started 
in  life.  He  must  —  unless,  of  course,  he  stands 
aloof  in  permanent  isolation  —  either  subordinate 
his  own  views  to  the  general  sentiment  of  his 
party,  and  be  driven  to  advocate  courses  he 


41 6  Biographical  Studies 

secretly  mislikes,  or  else,  holding  himself  ready 
to  quit  his  party,  if  need  be,  must  be  willing 
to  learn  from  events,  and  to  reconsider  his 
opinions  in  the  light  of  emergent  tendencies 
and  insistent  facts.  Mr.  Gladstone’s  pride  as 
well  as  his  conscience  forbade  the  former  alter¬ 
native;  it  was  fortunate  that  the  tireless  activity 
of  his  intellect  made  the  latter  natural  to  him. 
He  was  accustomed  to  say  that  the  capital  fault 
of  his  earlier  days  had  been  his  failure  adequately 
to  recognise  the  worth  and  power  of  liberty,  and 
the  tendency  which  things  have  to  work  out  for 
good  when  left  to  themselves.  The  application 
of  this  principle  gave  room  for  many  develop¬ 
ments,  and  many  developments  there  were.  He 
may  have  shown  less  than  was  needed  of  that 
prescience  which  is,  after  integrity  and  courage, 
the  highest  gift  of  a  statesman,  but  which  can 
seldom  be  expected  from  an  English  minister, 
too  engrossed  to  find  time  for  the  patient  re¬ 
flection  from  which  alone  sound  forecasts  can 
issue.  But  he  had  the  next  best  quality,  that 
of  remaining  accessible  to  new  ideas  and  learning 
from  the  events  which  passed  under  his  eyes. 

With  this  openness  and  flexibility  of  mind 
there  went  a  not  less  remarkable  ingenuity 
and  resourcefulness.  Fertile  in  expedients,  he 
was  still  more  fertile  in  reasonings  by  which 
to  recommend  the  expedients.  The  gift  had 
its  dangers,  for  he  was  apt  to  be  carried  away 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  417 

by  the  dexterity  of  his  own  dialectic,  and  to 
think  that  a  scheme  must  be  sound  in  whose 
support  he  could  muster  a  formidable  array 
of  arguments.  He  never  seemed  at  a  loss,  in 
public  or  in  private,  for  a  criticism,  or  for  an 
answer  to  the  criticisms  of  others.  If  his  power 
of  adapting  his  own  mind  to  the  minds  of  those 
whom  he  had  to  convince  had  been  equal  to  the 
skill  and  swiftness  with  which  he  accumulated  a 
mass  of  matter  persuasive  to  those  who  looked 
at  things  in  his  own  way,  no  one  would  have 
exercised  so  complete  a  control  over  the  po¬ 
litical  opinion  of  his  time.  But  his  intellect 
lacked  this  power  of  adaptation.  It  moved  on 
lines  of  its  own,  which  were  often  misconceived, 
even  by  those  who  sought  to  follow  him  loyally. 
Thus,  as  already  observed,  he  was  blamed  for 
two  opposite  faults.  Some,  pointing  to  the  fact 
that  he  had  frequently  altered  his  views,  de¬ 
nounced  him  as  a  demagogue  profuse  of  prom¬ 
ises,  ready  to  propose  whatever  he  thought 
likely  to  catch  the  people’s  ear.  Others  com¬ 
plained  that  there  was  no  knowing  where  to 
have  him ;  that  he  had  an  erratic  mind,  whose 
currents  ran  underground  and  came  to  the 
surface  in  unexpected  places ;  that  he  did 
not  consult  his  party,  but  followed  his  own 
impulses ;  that  his  guidance  was  unsafe  because 
his  decisions  were  unpredictable.  Much  of 
the  suspicion  with  which  he  was  regarded, 


41  8  Biographical  Studies 

especially  after  1885,  arose  from  this  view  of 
his  character. 

It  was  an  unfair  view,  yet  nearer  to  the  truth 
than  that  which  charged  him  with  seeking  to  flatter 
and  follow  the  people.  No  great  popular  leader 
had  in  him  less  of  the  demagogue.  He  saw, 
of  course,  that  a  statesman  cannot  oppose  the 
general  will  beyond  a  certain  point,  and  may 
have  to  humour  it  in  small  things  that  he  may 
direct  it  in  great  ones.  He  was  obliged,  as 
others  have  been,  to  take  up  and  settle  ques¬ 
tions  he  deemed  unimportant  because  they  were 
troubling  the  body  politic.  Now  and  then,  in 
his  later  days,  he  so  far  yielded  to  his  party 
advisers  as  to  express  his  approval  of  proposals 
in  which  his  own  interest  was  slight.  But  he 
was  ever  a  leader,  not  a  follower,  and  erred 
rather  in  not  keeping  his  finger  closely  and 
constantly  upon  the  pulse  of  public  opinion.  In 
this  point,  at  least,  one  may  discover  in  him  a 
likeness  to  Disraeli.  Slow  as  he  was  in  maturing 
his  opinions,  Mr.  Gladstone  was  liable  to  forget 
that  the  minds  of  his  followers  might  not  be 
moving  along  with  his  own,  and  hence  his 
decisions  sometimes  took  his  party  as  well  as 
the  nation  by  surprise.  But  he  was  too  self- 
absorbed,  too  eagerly  interested  in  the  ideas  that 
suited  his  own  cast  of  thought,  to  be  able  to 
watch  and  gauge  the  tendencies  of  the  multitude. 

^  The  three  most  remarkable  instances  in  which 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  419 

his  new  departures  startled  the  world  were  his 
declarations  against  the  Irish  Church  establish¬ 
ment  in  1867,  against  the  Turks  and  the  tradi¬ 
tional  English  policy  of  supporting  them  in  1876, 
and  in  favour  of  Irish  Home  Rule  in  1886,  and 
in  none  of  these  did  any  popular  demand  suggest 
his  pronouncement.  It  was  the  masses  who  took 
their  view  from  him,  not  he  who  took  a  mandate 
from  the  masses.  In  each  of  these  cases  he  may, 
perhaps,  be  blamed  for  not  having  sooner  perceived, 
or  at  any  rate  for  not  having  sooner  announced, 
the  need  for  a  change  of  policy.  But  it  was  very 
characteristic  of  him  not  to  give  the  full  strength 
of  his  mind  to  a  question  till  he  felt  that  it  pressed 
for  a  solution.  Those  who  listened  to  his  private 
talk  were  scarcely  more  struck  by  the  range  of 
his  vision  than  by  his  unwillingness  to  commit 
himself  on  matters  whose  decision  he  could 
postpone.  Reticence  and  caution  were  some¬ 
times  carried  too  far,  not  merely  because  they 
exposed  him  to  misconstruction,  but  because 
they  withheld  from  his  party  the  guidance  it 
needed.  This  was  true  in  the  three  instances 
just  mentioned ;  and  in  the  last  of  them  it  is 
possible  that  earlier  and  fuller  communications 
might  have  averted  the  separation  of  some  of 
his  former  colleagues.  Nor  did  he  always 
rightly  divine  the  popular  mind.  His  pro¬ 
posal  (in  1874)  to  extinguish  the  income-tax 
fell  completely  flat,  because  the  nation  was 


420  Biographical  Studies 

becoming  indifferent  to  that  economy  in  public 
expenditure  which  both  parties  had  in  the  days 
of  Peel  and  Lord  John  Russell  vied  in  demanding. 
Cherishing  his  old  financial  ideals,  Mr.  Gladstone 
had  not  marked  the  change.  So  he  failed  to 
perceive  how  much  the  credit  of  his  party  was 
suffering  (after  1871)  from  the  belief  of  large 
sections  of  the  people,  that  he  was  indifferent 
to  the  interests  of  England  outside  England. 
Perhaps,  knowing  the  charge  of  indifference  to 
be  groundless,  he  underrated  the  effect  which  the 
iteration  of  it  produced :  perhaps  his  pride  would 
not  let  him  stoop  to  dissipate  it. 

Though  the  power  of  reading  the  signs  of 
the  times  and  swaying  the  mind  of  the  nation 
may  be  now  more  essential  to  an  English 
statesman  than  the  skill  which  manages  a  legis¬ 
lature  or  holds  together  a  cabinet,  that  skill 
counts  for  much,  and  must  continue  to  do  so 
while  the  House  of  Commons  remains  the 
governing  authority  of  the  country.  A  man 
can  hardly  reach  high  place,  and  certainly  can¬ 
not  retain  high  place,  without  possessing  this 
kind  of  art.  Mr.  Gladstone  was  at  one  time 
thought  to  want  it.  In  1864,  when  Lord  Palmer¬ 
ston’s  end  was  approaching,  and  Mr.  Gladstone 
had  shown  himself  the  strongest  man  among 
the  Liberal  ministers  in  the  House  of  Com¬ 
mons,  people  speculated  about  the  succession 
to  the  headship  of  the  party;  and  the  wise- 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  421 

acres  of  the  day  were  never  tired  of  repeating 
that  Mr.  Gladstone  could  not  possibly  lead  the 
House  of  Commons.  He  wanted  tact,  they  said, 
he  was  too  excitable,  too  impulsive,  too  much 
absorbed  in  his  own  ideas,  too  unversed  in  the 
arts  by  which  individuals  are  conciliated.  But 
when,  after  twenty-five  years  of  his  unquestioned 
reign,  the  time  for  his  own  departure  drew  nigh, 
men  asked  how  the  Liberal  party  in  the  House 
of  Commons  would  ever  hold  together  after  it 
had  lost  a  leader  of  such  consummate  capacity. 
The  Whig  critics  of  1864  had  grown  so  accus¬ 
tomed  to  Palmerston’s  way  of  handling  the  House 
as  to  forget  that  a  man  might  succeed  by  quite 
different  methods,  and  that  defects,  serious  in 
themselves,  may  be  outweighed  by  transcendent 
merits. 

Mr.  Gladstone  had  the  defects  ascribed  to 
him.  His  impulsiveness  sometimes  betrayed 
him  into  declarations  which  a  cooler  reflection 
would  have  dissuaded.  The  second  reading 
of  the  Irish  Home  Rule  Bill  of  1886  might 
possibly  h'ave  been  carried  had  he  not  been 
goaded  by  his  opponents  into  words  which 
were  construed  as  recalling  or  modifying  the 
concessions  he  had  announced  at  a  meeting 
of  the  Liberal  party  held  just  before.  More 
than  once  precious  time  was  wasted  because  an¬ 
tagonists,  knowing  his  excitable  temper,  brought 
on  discussions  with  the  sole  object  of  annoying 


422  Biographical  Studies 

him  and  drawing  from  him  some  hasty  deliverance. 
Nor  was  he  an  adept,  like  Disraeli  and  Dis¬ 
raeli’s  famous  Canadian  imitator,  Sir  John  A. 
Macdonald,  in  the  management  of  individuals. 
His  aversion  for  the  meaner  side  of  human 
nature  made  him  refuse  to  play  upon  it.  Many 
of  the  pursuits,  and  most  of  the  pleasures, 
which  attract  ordinary  men  had  no  interest  for 
him,  so  that  much  of  the  common  ground  on 
which  men  meet  was  closed  to  him.  He  was, 
moreover,  too  constantly  engrossed  by  the  sub¬ 
jects  he  loved,  and  by  enterprises  which  specially 
appealed  to  him,  to  have  leisure  for  the  lighter 
but  often  vitally  important  devices  of  political 
strategy.  I  remember  hearing,  soon  after  1870, 
how  Mr.  Delane,  then  editor  of  the  Times ,  had 
been  invited  to  meet  the  Prime  Minister  at  a 
moment  when  the  support  of  that  newspaper 
would  have  been  specially  valuable  to  the  Liberal 
government.  Instead  of  using  the  opportunity 
in  the  way  that  had  been  intended,  Mr.  Gladstone 
dilated  during  the  whole  time  of  dinner  upon 
the  approaching  exhaustion  of  the  English  coal¬ 
beds,  to  the  surprise  of  the  company  and  the  un¬ 
concealed  annoyance  of  the  powerful  guest.  It 
was  the  subject  then  uppermost  in  his  mind,  and 
he  either  forgot,  or  disdained,  to  conciliate  Mr. 
Delane.  Good  nature  as  well  as  good  sense 
made  him  avoid  giving  offence  by  personal  re¬ 
flections  in  debate,  and  he  usually  suffered  fools, 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  423 

if  not,  like  St.  Paul’s  converts,  gladly,  yet 
patiently.1  In  the  House  of  Commons  he  was 
entirely  free  from  airs,  and,  indeed,  from  any 
assumption  of  superiority.  The  youngest  member 
might  accost  him  in  the  lobby  and  be  listened 
to  with  perfect  courtesy.  But  he  had  a  bad 
memory  for  faces,  seldom  addressed  any  one 
outside  the  circle  of  his  personal  friends,  and 
more  than  once  made  enemies  by  omitting  to 
notice  and  show  attention  to  recruits  who,  hav¬ 
ing  been  eminent  in  their  own  towns,  expected  to 
be  made  much  of  when  they  entered  Parliament. 
Having  himself  plenty  of  pride  and  comparatively 
little  vanity,  he  never  realised  the  extent  to  which, 
and  the  cheapness  with  which,  men  can  be  captured 
and  used  through  their  vanity.  Adherents  were 
sometimes  turned  into  dangerous  foes  because 
his  preoccupation  with  graver  matters  dimmed  his 
sense  of  what  may  be  done  to  win  support  by  the 
minor  arts,  such  as  an  invitation  to  dinner  or  even 
a  seasonable  compliment.  And  his  mind,  flexible 
as  it  was  in  seizing  new  points  of  view  and  devis¬ 
ing  expedients  to  meet  new  circumstances,  did 
not  easily  enter  into  the  characters  of  other  men. 
Ideas  and  causes  interested  him  more  than  did 

1  One  of  his  most  intimate  friends  has,  I  think,  said  that  “  he  never 
knew  what  it  was  to  be  bored.”  Fortunate,  indeed,  would  he  have  been 
had  this  been  so;  but  that  one  who  had  watched  him  long  and  closely 
should  make  the  statement  shows  how  gently  bores  fared  at  his  hands. 

I  recollect  his  once  remarking  on  the  capacity  for  boring  possessed  by 
a  gentleman  who  had  been  introduced  and  had  talked  for  some  fifteen  min¬ 
utes  to  him;  but  his  own  manner  through  the  conversation  had  betrayed 
no  impatience. 


424  Biographical  Studies 

personal  traits;  his  sympathy  was  keener  and 
stronger  for  the  sufferings  of  nations  or  masses 
of  men  than  with  the  fortunes  of  an  individual 
man.  With  all  his  accessibility  and  kindli¬ 
ness,  he  was  at  bottom  chary  of  real  friendship, 
while  the  circle  of  his  intimates  became  constantly 
smaller  with  advancing  years.  So  it  befell  that 
though  his  popularity  among  the  general  body 
of  his  adherents  went  on  increasing,  and  the  ad¬ 
miration  of  his  parliamentary  followers  remained 
undiminished,  he  had  in  the  House  of  Commons 
few  personal  friends  who  linked  him  to  the  party 
at  large,  and  rendered  to  him  those  confidential 
services  which  count  for  much  in  keeping  all 
sections  in  hearty  accord  and  enabling  the  com¬ 
mander  to  gauge  the  sentiment  of  his  troops. 

Of  parliamentary  strategy  in  that  larger  sense, 
which  covers  familiarity  with  parliamentary  forms 
and  usages,  care  and  judgment  in  arranging  the 
business  of  the  House,  the  power  of  seizing  a 
parliamentary  situation  and  knowing  how  to 
deal  with  it,  the  art  of  guiding  a  debate  and 
choosing  the  right  moment  for  reserve  and  for 
openness,  for  a  dignified  retreat,  for  a  watch¬ 
ful  defence,  for  a  sudden  rattling  charge  upon  the 
enemy  —  of  all  this  no  one  had  a  fuller  mastery. 
His  recollection  of  precedents  was  unrivalled,  for 
it  began  in  1833  with  the  first  reformed  Parlia¬ 
ment,  and  it  seemed  as  fresh  for  those  remote 
days  as  for  last  month.  He  enjoyed  combat  for 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  425 

its  own  sake,  not  so  much  from  inborn  pug¬ 
nacity,  for  he  was  not  disputatious  in  ordinary 
conversation,  as  because  it  called  out  his  fighting 
force  and  stimulated  his  whole  nature.  “  I  am 
never  nervous  in  reply,”  he  once  said,  “  though  I 
am  sometimes  nervous  in  opening  a  debate.”  No 
one  could  be  more  tactful  or  adroit  when  a  crisis 
arrived  whose  gravity  he  had  foreseen.  In  the 
summer  of  1881  the  House  of  Lords  made  some 
amendments  to  the  Irish  Land  Bill  which  were 
deemed  ruinous  to  the  working  of  the  measure, 
and  therewith  to  the  prospects  of  the  pacification 
of  Ireland.  A  conflict  was  expected  which  might 
have  strained  the  fabric  of  the  constitution.  The 
excitement  which  quickly  arose  in  Parliament 
spread  to  the  nation.  Mr.  Gladstone  alone 
remained  calm  and  confident.  He  devised  a 
series  of  compromises,  which  he  advocated  in  con¬ 
ciliatory  speeches.  He  so  played  his  game  that 
by  a  few  minor  concessions  he  secured  nearly  all 
the  points  he  cared  for,  and,  while  sparing  the 
dignity  of  the  Lords,  steered  his  bill  triumphantly 
out  of  the  breakers  which  had  threatened  to 
engulf  it.  Very  different  was  his  ordinary  de¬ 
meanour  in  debate  when  he  was  off  his  guard. 
His  face  and  gestures  while  he  sat  in  the  House 
of  Commons  listening  to  an  opponent  would 
express  all  the  emotions  that  crossed  his  mind. 
He  would  follow  every  sentence  as  a  hawk  follows 
the  movements  of  a  small  bird,  would  some- 


426  Biographical  Studies 

times  contradict  half  aloud,  sometimes  turn  to 
his  next  neighbour  to  vent  his  displeasure  at  the 
groundless  allegations  or  fallacious  arguments  he 
was  listening  to,  till  at  last,  like  a  hunting  leopard 
loosed  from  the  leash,  he  would  spring  to  his 
feet  and  deliver  a  passionate  reply.  His  warmth 
would  often  be  in  excess  of  what  the  occasion 
required,  and  quite  disproportioned  to  the  im¬ 
portance  of  his  antagonist.  It  was  in  fact  the 
unimportance  of  the  occasion  that  made  him  thus 
yield  to  his  feeling.  As  soon  as  he  saw  that 
bad  weather  was  coming,  and  careful  seaman¬ 
ship  wanted,  his  coolness  returned,  his  language 
became  measured,  while  passion,  though  it  might 
increase  the  force  of  his  oratory,  never  made  him 
deviate  a  hand’s  breadth  from  the  course  he 
had  chosen.  The  Celtic  heat  subsided,  and  the 
shrewd  self-control  of  the  Lowland  Scot  regained 
command. 

It  was  by  oratory  that  Mr.  Gladstone  rose  to 
fame  and  power,  as,  indeed,  by  it  most  English 
statesmen  have  risen,  save  those  to  whom  wealth 
and  rank  and  family  connections  used  to  give  a 
sort  of  presumptive  claim  to  high  office,  like  the 
Cavendishes  and  the  Russells,  the  Bentincks  and 
the  Cecils.  And  for  many  years,  during  which  Mr. 
Gladstone  was  suspected  as  a  statesman  because, 
while  he  had  ceased  to  be  a  Tory,  he  had  not  fully 
become  a  Liberal,  his  eloquence  was  the  main,  one 
might  almost  say  the  sole,  source  of  his  influence 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  427 

Oratory  was  a  power  in  English  politics  even  a 
century  and  a  half  ago,  as  the  career  of  the 
elder  Pitt  shows.  During  the  last  seventy  years, 
years  which  have  seen  the  power  of  rank  and 
family  connections  decline,  it  has,  although 
less  cultivated  as  a  fine  art,  continued  to  be 
almost  essential  to  the  highest  success,  and  it 
still  brings  a  man  quickly  to  the  front,  though 
it  will  not  keep  him  there  should  he  prove 
to  want  the  other  branches  of  statesmanlike 
capacity. 

The  permanent  reputation  of  an  orator  de¬ 
pends  upon  two  things,  the  witness  of  con¬ 
temporaries  to  the  impression  produced  upon 
them,  and  the  written  or  printed  record  of  his 
speeches.  Few  are  the  famous  speakers  who 
would  be  famous  if  they  were  tried  by  this  lat¬ 
ter  test  alone,  and  Mr.  Gladstone  was  not  one  of 
them.  It  is  only  by  a  rare  combination  of  gifts 
that  one  who  speaks  with  so  much  force  and 
brilliance  as  to  charm  his  listeners  is  also  able 
to  deliver  thoughts  so  valuable  in  words  so 
choice  that  posterity  will  read  them  as  literature. 
Some  of  the  ancient  orators  did  this ;  but  we 
seldom  know  how  far  those  of  their  speeches 
which  have  been  preserved  are  the  speeches  which 
they  actually  delivered.  Among  moderns,  a  few 
French  preachers,  Edmund  Burke,  Macaulay,  and 
Daniel  Webster  are  perhaps  the  only  speakers 
whose  discourses  have  passed  into  classics  and 


428  Biographical  Studies 

find  new  generations  of  readers.1  Twenty  years 
hence  Mr.  Gladstone’s  will  not  be  read,  except,  of 
course,  by  historians.  Indeed,  they  ceased  to  be 
read  even  in  his  lifetime.  They  are  too  long, 
too  diffuse,  too  minute  in  their  handling  of  details, 
too  elaborately  qualified  in  their  enunciation  of 
general  principles.  They  contain  few  epigrams 
and  few  of  those  weighty  thoughts  put  into  telling 
phrases  which  the  Greeks  called  yvu>tiau.  The 
style,  in  short,  is  not  sufficiently  rich  or  polished 
to  give  an  enduring  interest  to  matter  whose 
practical  importance  has  vanished.  The  same 
oblivion  has  overtaken  all  but  a  few  of  the 
best  speeches  (or  parts  of  speeches)  of  Grattan, 
Sheridan,  Pitt,  Fox,  Erskine,  Canning,  Plunket, 
Brougham,  Peel,  Bright.  It  may,  indeed,  be 
said  —  and  the  examples  of  Burke  and  Macaulay 
show  that  this  is  no  paradox  —  that  the  speakers 
whom  posterity  most  enjoys  are  rarely  those  who 
most  affected  the  audiences  that  listened  to  them.2 

If,  on  the  other  hand,  Mr.  Gladstone  be  judged 
by  the  impression  he  made  on  his  own  time,  his 
place  will  be  high  in  the  front  rank.  His  speeches 
were  neither  so  concisely  telling  as  Mr.  Bright’s 
nor  so  finished  in  diction ;  but  no  other  man 

1  Sermons  belong  to  a  somewhat  different  category,  else  I  should  have 
to  add  the  discourses  of  a  few  great  preachers,  such  as  Robert  Hall,  J.  H. 
Newman,  Phillips  Brooks. 

2  Though  one  of  Macaulay’s  speeches  (that  against  the  exclusion  of  the 
Master  of  the  Rolls  from  the  House  of  Commons)  had  the  rare  honour  of 
turning  votes. 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  429 

among  his  contemporaries — neither  Lord  Derby 
nor  Mr.  Lowe,  nor  Lord  Beaconsfield,  nor  Lord 
Cairns,  nor  Bishop  Wilberforce  nor  Bishop  Magee 
—  taken  all  round,  could  be  ranked  beside  him. 
And  he  rose  superior  to  Mr.  Bright  himself  in 
readiness,  in  variety  of  knowledge,  in  persuasive 
ingenuity.  Mr.  Bright  spoke  seldom  and  required 
time  for  preparation.  Admirable  in  the  breadth 
and  force  with  which  he  set  forth  his  own  position, 
or  denounced  that  of  his  adversaries,  he  was 
not  equally  qualified  for  instructing  nor  equally 
apt  at  persuading.  Mr.  Gladstone  could  both 
instruct  and  persuade,  could  stimulate  his  friends 
and  demolish  his  opponents,  and  could  do  all 
these  things  at  an  hour’s  notice,  so  vast  and  well 
ordered  was  the  arsenal  of  his  mind.  Pitt  was 
superb  in  an  expository  or  argumentative  speech, 
but  his  stately  periods  lacked  variety.  Fox,  in¬ 
comparable  in  reply,  was  hesitating  and  confused 
when  he  had  to  state  his  case  in  cold  blood. 
Mr.  Gladstone  showed  as  much  fire  in  winding 
up  a  debate  as  skill  in  opening  it. 

His  oratory  had,  indeed,  two  faults.  It  wanted 
concentration,  and  it  wanted  definition.  There 
were  too  many  words,  and  the  conclusion  was 
sometimes  left  vague  because  the  arguments  had 
been  too  nicely  balanced.  I  once  heard  Mr. 
Cobden  say :  “  I  always  listen  to  Mr.  Gladstone 
with  pleasure  and  admiration,  but  I  sometimes 
have  to  ask  myself,  when  he  has  sat  down,  ‘  What 


43°  Biographical  Studies 

after  all  was  it  that  he  meant,  and  what  practical 
course  does  he  recommend  ?  ’  ”  These  faults 
were  balanced  by  conspicuous  merits.  There 
was  a  lively  imagination,  which  enabled  him 
to  relieve  even  dull  matter  by  pleasing  figures, 
together  with  a  large  command  of  quotations 
and  illustrations.  There  were  powers  of  sarcasm, 
powers,  however,  which  he  rarely  used,  pre¬ 
ferring  the  summer  lightning  of  banter  to  the 
thunderbolts  of  invective.  There  was  admirable 
lucidity  and  accuracy  in  exposition.  There  was 
art  in  the  disposition  and  marshalling  of  his 
arguments,  and  finally  —  a  gift  now  almost  lost 
in  England  —  there  was  a  delightful  variety  and 
grace  of  appropriate  gesture.  But  above  and 
beyond  everything  else  which  enthralled  the 
listener,  there  stood  out  four  qualities.  Two  of 
them  were  merits  of  substance  —  inventiveness  and 
elevation;  two  were  merits  of  deliver}'  —  force  in 
the  manner,  expressive  modulation  in  the  voice. 

No  one  showed  such  swift  resourcefulness  in 
debate.  His  readiness,  not  only  at  catching  a 
point,  but  at  making  the  most  of  it  on  a  moment’s 
notice,  was  amazing.  Some  one  would  lean  over 
the  back  of  the  bench  he  sat  on  and  show  a 
paper  or  whisper  a  sentence  to  him.  Appre¬ 
hending  the  bearings  at  a  glance,  he  would  take 
the  bare  fact  and  so  shape  and  develop  it,  like 
a  potter  moulding  a  bowl  on  the  wheel  out  of 
a  lump  of  clay,  that  it  grew  into  a  cogent 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  43 1 

argument  or  a  happy  illustration  under  the  eye  of 
the  audience,  and  seemed  all  the  more  telling 
because  it  had  not  been  originally  a  part  of  his 
case.  Even  in  the  last  three  years  of  his  parlia¬ 
mentary  life,  when  his  sight  had  so  failed  that  he 
read  nothing,  printed  or  written,  except  what  it 
was  absolutely  necessary  to  read,  and  when  his 
deafness  had  so  increased  that  he  did  not  hear 
half  of  what  was  said  in  debate,  it  was  sufficient 
for  a  colleague  to  say  into  the  better  ear  a  few 
words  explaining  how  the  matter  at  issue  stood, 
and  he  would  rise  to  his  feet  and  extemporise 
a  long  and  ingenious  argument,  or  retreat  with 
dexterous  grace  from  a  position  which  the  course 
of  the  discussion  or  the  private  warning  of  the 
Whips  had  shown  to  be  untenable.  Never  was 
he  seen  at  a  loss  either  to  meet  a  new  point 
raised  by  an  adversary  or  to  make  the  best  of 
an  unexpected  incident.  Sometimes  he  would 
amuse  himself  by  drawing  a  cheer  or  a  contradic¬ 
tion  from  his  opponents,  and  would  then  suddenly 
turn  round  and  use  this  hasty  expression  of  their 
opinion  as  the  basis  for  a  fresh  argument  of  his 
own.  Loving  conflict,  he  loved  debate,  and, 
so  far  from  being  confused  or  worried  by  the 
strain  conflict  put  upon  him,  his  physical  health 
was  strengthened  and  his  faculties  were  roused 
to  higher  efficiency  by  having  to  prepare  and 
deliver  a  great  speech.  He  had  the  rare  faculty 
of  thinking  ahead  while  he  was  speaking,  and 


43 2  Biographical  Studies 

could,  while  pouring  forth  a  stream  of  glittering 
sentences,  be  at  the  same  time  (as  one  saw  by 
watching  his  eye)  composing  an  argument  to  be 
delivered  five  or  ten  minutes  later.  Once,  at  a 
very  critical  moment,  when  he  was  defending  a 
great  measure  against  the  amendment  —  moved 
by  a  nominal  supporter  of  his  own  —  which  proved 
fatal  to  it,  a  friend  suddenly  reminded  him  of  an 
incident  in  the  career  of  the  mover  which  might 
be  effectively  used  against  him.  When  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone  sat  down  after  delivering  an  impassioned 
speech,  in  the  course  of  which  he  had  several 
times  approached  and  then  sheered  off  from  the 
incident,  he  turned  round  to  the  friend  and  said, 
“  I  was  thinking  all  the  time  I  was  speaking 

whether  I  could  properly  use  against - what 

you  told  me,  but  concluded,  on  the  whole,  that 
it  would  be  too  hard  on  him.” 

The  weakness  of  his  eloquence  sprang  from  its 
supersubtlety  and  superabundance.  He  was  prone 
to  fine  distinctions.  He  multiplied  arguments 
when  it  would  have  been  better  to  rely  upon  two 
or  three  of  the  strongest.  And  he  was  sometimes 
so  intent  on  refuting  the  particular  adversaries 
opposed  to  him,  and  persuading  the  particular 
audience  before  him,  that  he  forgot  to  address 
his  reasonings  to  the  public  beyond  the  House, 
and  make  them  equally  applicable  and  equally 
convincing  to  the  readers  of  next  morning. 

As  dignity  is  one  of  the  rarest  qualities  in 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  433 

literature,  so  elevation  is  one  of  the  rarest  in 
oratory.  It  is  a  quality  easier  to  feel  than  to 
analyse.  One  may  call  it  a  power  of  ennobling 
ordinary  things  by  showing  their  relation  to  great 
things,  by  pouring  high  emotions  round  them, 
by  bringing  the  worthier  motives  of  human 
conduct  to  bear  upon  them,  by  touching  them 
with  the  light  of  poetry.  Ambitious  writers  and 
speakers  strain  after  effects  of  this  kind ;  but 
they  are  effects  which  study  and  straining 
cannot  ensure.  Vainly  do  most  men  flap  their 
wings  in  the  effort  to  soar;  if  they  succeed 
in  rising  from  the  ground  it  is  because  some 
unusually  strong  burst  of  feeling  makes  them 
for  the  moment  better  than  themselves.  In 
Mr.  Gladstone  the  capacity  for  feeling  was  at 
all  times  so  strong,  and  the  susceptibility  of  the 
imagination  so  keen,  that  he  soared  without 
effort.  His  vision  seemed  to  take  in  the  whole 
landscape.  The  points  actually  in  question 
might  be  small,  but  the  principles  involved  were 
to  him  far-reaching.  The  contests  of  to-day 
were  ennobled  by  the  effect  they  might  have  in 
a  still  distant  future.  There  are  rhetoricians 
skilful  in  playing  by  words  and  manner  on  every 
chord  of  human  nature,  rhetoricians  who  move 
you,  and  may  even  carry  you  away  for  the 
moment,  but  whose  sincerity  is  doubted,  because 
the  sense  of  spontaneity  is  lacking.  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone  was  not  of  these.  He  never  seemed  to  be 


434  Biographical  Studies 

forcing  an  effect  or  assuming  a  sentiment.  To 
listen  to  him  was  to  feel  convinced  of  his  own 
conviction  and  to  be  warmed  by  the  warmth  with 
which  he  expressed  it.  Nor  was  this  due  to  the 
perfection  of  his  rhetorical  art.  He  really  did 
feel  what  he  expressed.  Sometimes,  of  course, 
like  all  statesmen,  he  had  to  maintain  a  cause 
whose  weakness  he  perceived,  as,  for  instance, 
when  it  became  necessary  to  defend  the  blunder 
of  a  colleague,  or  a  decision  reached  by  some 
Cabinet  compromise  which  his  own  judgment 
disapproved.  But  even  in  such  cases  he  did 
not  simulate  feeling,  but  reserved  his  earnestness 
for  those  parts  of  the  case  on  which  it  could  be 
honestly  expended.  As  this  was  generally  true 
of  the  imaginative  and  emotional  side  of  his  elo¬ 
quence,  so  was  it  especially  true  of  his  unequalled 
power  of  lifting  a  subject  from  the  level  on  which 
other  speakers  had  treated  it  into  the  purer  air 
of  permanent  principle,  perhaps  even  of  moral 
sublimity. 

The  dignity  and  spontaneity  which  marked  the 
substance  of  his  speeches  was  no  less  conspicuous 
in  their  delivery.  Nothing  could  be  more  easy  and 
graceful  than  his  manner  on  ordinary  occasions, 
nothing  more  grave  and  stately  than  it  became 
when  he  was  making  a  ceremonial  reference 
to  some  public  event  or  bestowing  a  meed  of 
praise  on  the  departed.  His  expository  dis¬ 
courses,  such  as  those  with  which  he  introduced 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  435 

a  complicated  bill  or  unfolded  a  financial  state¬ 
ment,  were  models  of  their  kind,  not  only  for 
lucidity,  but  for  the  pleasant  smoothness,  never 
lapsing  into  monotony,  with  which  the  stream 
of  speech  flowed  from  his  lips.  The  task  was 
performed  so  well  that  people  thought  it  an 
easy  task  till  they  saw  how  inferior  were  the 
performances  of  two  subsequent  chancellors  of 
the  exchequer  so  able  in  their  respective 
ways  as  Sir  Stafford  Northcote  and  Mr.  Lowe. 
But  when  an  occasion  arrived  which  quickened 
men’s  pulses  in  the  House  of  Commons,  a  place 
where  feeling  rises  as  suddenly  as  do  the  waves 
of  a  Highland  loch  when  a  squall  comes  rush¬ 
ing  down  the  glen,  the  vehemence  of  his  feeling 
found  expression  in  the  fire  of  his  eye  and  the 
resistless  strength  of  his  words.  His  utterance 
did  not  grow  swifter,  nor  did  the  key  of  his 
voice  rise,  as  passion  raises  and  sharpens  the 
voice  in  most  men.  But  the  measured  force  with 
which  every  sentence  was  launched,  like  a  shell 
hurtling  through  the  air,  the  concentrated  inten¬ 
sity  of  his  look,  as  he  defied  antagonists  in 
front  and  swept  his  glance  over  the  ranks  of  his 
supporters  around  and  behind  him,  had  a  start¬ 
ling  and  thrilling  power  which  no  other  English¬ 
man  could  exert,  and  which  no  Englishman  had 
exerted  since  the  days  of  Pitt  and  Fox.  The 
whole  proud,  bold,  ardent  nature  of  the  man 
seemed  to  flash  out,  and  one  almost  forgot  what 


43 6  Biographical  Studies 

the  lips  said  in  admiration  of  the  towering 
personality. 

People  who  read  next  day  the  report  in  the 
newspapers  of  a  speech  delivered  on  such  an 
occasion  could  not  comprehend  the  impression 
it  had  made  on  the  listeners.  “  What  was  there 
in  it  so  to  stir  you  ?  ”  they  asked.  They  had  not 
seen  the  glance  and  the  gestures ;  they  had  not 
heard  the  vibrating  voice  rise  to  an  organ  peal 
of  triumph  or  sink  to  a  whisper  of  entreaty.  Mr. 
Gladstone’s  voice  was  naturally  rich  and  resonant. 
It  was  a  fine  singing  voice,  and  a  pleasant  voice 
to  listen  to  in  conversation,  not  the  less  pleasant 
for  having  a  slight  trace  of  Liverpool  accent 
clinging  to  it.  But  what  struck  one  in  listening 
to  his  speeches  was  not  so  much  the  quality  of 
the  vocal  chords  as  the  skill  with  which  they  were 
managed.  He  had  a  gift  of  sympathetic  ex¬ 
pression,  of  throwing  his  feeling  into  his  voice, 
and  using  its  modulations  to  accompany  and  con¬ 
vey  every  shade  of  meaning,  like  that  which  a 
great  composer  exerts  when  he  puts  music  to  a 
poem,  or  a  great  executant  when  he  renders  at 
once  the  composer’s  and  the  poet’s  thought. 
And  just  as  accomplished  singers  or  violinists 
enjoy  the  practice  of  their  art,  so  he  rejoiced,  per¬ 
haps  unconsciously,  yet  intensely,  in  putting  forth 
this  faculty  of  expression  ;  as  appeared,  indeed, 
from  the  fact  that  whenever  his  voice  failed 
him  (which  sometimes  befell  in  later  years)  his 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  437 

words  came  less  easily,  and  even  the  chariot  of 
his  argument  seemed  to  drive  heavily.  That 
the  voice  should  so  seldom  have  failed  was 
wonderful  When  he  had  passed  his  seventy- 
fifth  year,  it  became  sensibly  inferior  in  volume 
and  depth  of  tone.  But  its  variety  and  delicacy 
remained.  In  April  1886,  he  being  then  seventy- 
seven,  it  held  out  during  a  speech  of  nearly 
four  hours  in  length.  In  February  1890  it 
enabled  him  to  deliver  with  extraordinary  effect 
an  eminently  solemn  and  pathetic  appeal.  In 
March  1894  those  who  listened  to  it  the  last  time 
it  was  heard  in  Parliament  —  they  were  com¬ 
paratively  few,  for  the  secret  of  his  impending 
resignation  had  been  well  kept  —  recognised  in  it 
all  the  old  charm.  The  most  striking  instance  I 
recall  of  the  power  it  could  exert  is  to  be  found 
in  a  speech  made  in  1883,  during  one  of  the 
tiresome  debates  occasioned  by  the  refusal  of 
the  Opposition  and  of  some  timorous  Liberals 
to  allow  Mr.  Bradlaugh  to  be  sworn  as  a  member 
of  the  House  of  Commons.  This  speech  pro¬ 
duced  on  those  who  heard  it  an  impression 
which  its  perusal  to-day  fails  to  explain.  That 
impression  was  chiefly  due  to  the  grave  and 
reverent  tone  in  which  he  delivered  some 
sentences  stating  the  view  that  it  is  not  our 
belief  in  the  bare  existence  of  a  Deity,  but  the 
realising  of  him  as  being  a  Providence  ruling 
the  world,  that  has  moral  value  and  significance 


43  8  Biographical  Studies 

for  us.  And  it  was  due  in  particular  to  the  solemn 
dignity  with  which  he  declaimed  six  lines  of 
Lucretius,  setting  forth  the  Epicurean  view  that 
the  gods  do  not  concern  themselves  with  human 
affairs.  There  were  perhaps  not  twenty  men 
in  the  House  of  Commons  who  could  follow  the 
sense  of  the  lines  so  as  to  appreciate  their  bearing 
on  his  argument.  But  these  sonorous  hexameters 
—  hexameters  that  seemed  to  have  lived  on 
through  nineteen  centuries  to  find  their  appli¬ 
cation  from  the  lips  of  an  orator  to-day  —  the 
sense  of  remoteness  in  the  strange  language  and 
the  far-off  heathen  origin,  the  deep  and  moving 
note  in  the  speaker’s  voice,  thrilled  the  imagina¬ 
tion  of  the  audience  and  held  it  spellbound,  lifting 
for  a  moment  the  whole  subject  of  debate  into  a 
region  far  above  party  conflicts.  Spoken  by  any 
one  else,  the  passage  culminating  in  these  Lucretian 
lines  might  have  produced  little  effect.  It  was  the 
voice  and  manner,  above  all  the  voice,  with  its  mar¬ 
vellous  modulations, that  made  the  speech  majestic. 

Yet  one  must  not  forget  to  add  that  with  him, 
as  with  some  other  famous  statesmen,  the  im¬ 
pression  made  by  a  speech  was  in  a  measure  due 
to  the  admiring  curiosity  and  wonder  which  his 
personality  inspired.  He  was  so  much  the  most 
interesting  human  being  in  the  House  of  Com¬ 
mons  that,  when  he  withdrew,  many  members 
said  that  the  place  had  lost  half  its  attraction  for 
them,  and  that  the  chamber  looked  empty  because 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  439 

he  was  not  in  it.  Plenty  of  able  men  remained. 
But  even  the  ablest  seemed  ordinary  when  com¬ 
pared  with  the  figure  that  had  vanished,  a  figure 
in  whom  were  combined,  as  in  no  other  man  of 
his  time,  an  unrivalled  experience,  an  extraordinary 
activity  and  versatility  of  intellect,  a  fervid  imagina¬ 
tion,  and  an  indomitable  will. 

Though  Mr.  Gladstone’s  oratory  was  a  main 
source  of  his  power,  both  in  Parliament  and  over 
the  people,  the  effort  of  detractors  to  represent 
him  as  a  mere  rhetorician  will  seem  absurd  to 
the  historian  who  reviews  his  whole  career.  The 
rhetorician  adorns  and  popularises  the  ideas 
which  have  originated  with  others ;  he  advocates 
policies  which  others  have  devised;  he  follows 
and  expresses  the  sentiments  which  already  pre¬ 
vail  in  his  party.  Mr.  Gladstone  was  himself  a 
source  of  new  ideas^and  new  policies ;  he  evoked 
new  sentiments  or  turned  old  sentiments  into 
new  channels.  Neither  was  he,  as  some  alleged, 
primarily  a  destroyer.  His  conservative  in¬ 
stincts  were  strong  ;  he  cherished  ancient  custom. 
When  it  became  necessary  to  clear  away  an 
institution  he  sought  to  put  something  else  in 
its  place.  He  was  a  constructive  statesman  not 
less  conspicuously  than  were  Pitt,  Canning,  and 
Peel.  Whether  he  was  a  philosophic  statesman, 
basing  his  action  on  large  views  obtained  by 
thought  and  study,  philosophic  in  the  sense  in 
which  we  apply  the  epithet  to  Pericles,  Machia- 


44°  Biographical  Studies 

velli,  Turgot,  Burke,  Jefferson,  Hamilton,  Stein 
—  if  one  class  can  be  made  to  include  persons 
otherwise  so  dissimilar  —  may  perhaps  be  doubted. 
There  are  few  instances  in  history  of  men  who 
have  been  great  thinkers  and  also  great  legis¬ 
lators  or  administrators,  because  the  two  kinds  of 
capacity  almost  exclude  one  another.  As  experts 
declare  that  a  man  who  should  try  to  operate  on 
the  Stock  Exchange  in  reliance  upon  a  profound 
knowledge  of  the  inner  springs  of  European 
politics  and  the  financial  resources  of  the  great 
States,  would  ruin  himself  before  his  perfectly 
correct  calculations  had  time  to  come  true,  so  a 
practical  statesman,  though  he  cannot  know  too 
much,  or  look  too  far  ahead,  must  beware  of  trust¬ 
ing  his  own  forecasts,  must  remember  that  he 
has  to  deal  with  the  next  few  months  or  years, 
and  to  persuade  persons  who  cannot  be  expected 
to  share  or  even  to  understand  his  views  of  the 
future.  The  habit  of  meditating  on  underlying 
truths,  the  tendency  to  play  the  long  game,  are 
almost  certain  to  spoil  a  man  for  dealing  effectively 
with  the  present.  He  will  not  be  a  sufficiently 
vigilant  observer;  he  will  be  out  of  sympathy 
with  the  notions  of  the  average  man ;  his  argu¬ 
ments  will  go  over  the  head  of  his  audience.  No 
English  prime  minister  has  looked  at  politics 
with  the  eye  of  a  philosopher.  But  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone,  if  hardly  to  be  called  a  thinker,  showed 
higher  constructive  power  than  any  one  else 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  441 

has  done  since  Peel.  Were  the  memory  of  his 
oratorical  triumphs  to  pass  completely  away,  he 
would  deserve  to  be  remembered  in  respect  of 
the  mark  he  left  upon  the  British  statute-book 
and  of  the  changes  he  wrought  both  in  the  con¬ 
stitution  of  his  country  and  in  her  European 
policy. 

Three  groups  of  measures  stand  out  as  monu¬ 
ments  of  his  skill  and  energy.  The  first  of  these 
three  includes  the  financial  reforms  embodied  in 
a  series  of  fourteen  budgets  between  the  years 
1853  and  1882,  the  most  famous  of  which  were 
the  budgets  of  1853  and  i860.  In  the  former  he 
continued  the  work  begun  by  Peel  by  reducing 
and  simplifying  the  customs  duties.  Deficiencies 
in  revenue  were  supplied  by  the  enactment  of 
less  oppressive  imposts,  and  particularly  by  re¬ 
settling  the  income-tax,  and  by  the  introduction 
of  a  succession  duty  on  real  estate.  The  prepa¬ 
ration  and  passing  of  this  very  technical  and 
intricate  Succession  Duty  Act  was  a  most 
laborious  enterprise,  of  which  Mr.  Gladstone 
used  to  speak  as  the  severest  mental  strain  he 
had  ever  undergone : 

KapTi<TTr)v  8r]  r rjv  ye  fxayr^v  (fiaro  8vp.eva i  avSpuiv.1 

The  budget  of  i860,  among  other  changes, 
abolished  the  paper  duty,  a  boon  to  the  press 
which  was  resisted  by  the  House  of  Lords. 

1  “  He  said  that  this  was  the  hardest  battle  of  men  he  had  entered  ” 
{Iliad  vi.  185). 


44 2  Biographical  Studies 

They  threw  out  the  measure,  but  in  the  follow¬ 
ing  year  Mr.  Gladstone  forced  them  to  submit. 
His  achievements  in  the  field  of  finance  equal,  if 
they  do  not  surpass,  those  of  Peel,  and  are  not 
tarnished,  as  in  the  case  of  Pitt,  by  the  recollec¬ 
tion  of  a  burden  of  debts  incurred.  To  no 
minister  can  be  ascribed  so  large  a  share  in 
promoting  the  commercial  and  industrial  pros¬ 
perity  of  modern  England,  and  in  the  reduction 
of  her  national  debt  to  the  figure  at  which  it 
stood  when  it  began  to  rise  again  in  1900. 

The  second  group  includes  the  parliamentary 
reform  bills  of  1866  and  1884  and  the  Redistribu¬ 
tion  Bill  of  1885.  The  first  of  these  was  defeated 
in  the  House  of  Commons,  but  it  led  to  the 
passing  next  year,  by  Mr.  Disraeli,  of  a  more 
sweeping  measure.  Taken  together,  these  statutes 
have  turned  Britain  into  a  democratic  country, 
changing  the  character  of  her  government  almost 
as  profoundly  as  did  the  Reform  Act  of  1832. 

The  third  group  consists  of  a  series  of  Irish 
measures,  beginning  with  the  Church  Disestab¬ 
lishment  Act  of  1869,  and  including  the  Land 
Act  of  1870,  the  University  Education  Bill  of 
1873  (defeated  in  the  House  of  Commons),  the 
Land  Act  of  1881,  and  the  Home  Rule  bills  of 
1886  and  1893.  All  these  were  in  a  special 
manner  Mr.  Gladstone’s  handiwork,  prepared  as 
well  as  brought  in  and  advocated  by  him.  All 
were  highly  complicated,  and  of  one,  the  Land 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  443 

Act  of  1881,  which  it  took  three  months  to  carry 
through  the  House  of  Commons,  it  was  said 
that  so  great  was  its  intricacy  that  only  three 
men  understood  it — Mr.  Gladstone  himself,  his 
Attorney-General  for  Ireland,  and  Mr.  T.  M. 
Healy.  In  preparing  a  bill  no  man  could  be 
more  painstaking.  He  settled  and  laid  down  the 
principles  himself;  and  when  he  came  to  work 
them  out  with  the  draughtsman  and  the  officials 
who  had  special  knowledge  of  the  subject,  he 
insisted  on  knowing  what  their  effect  would  be 
in  every  particular.  Indeed,  he  loved  work  for 
its  own  sake,  in  this  respect  unlike  Mr.  Bright, 
who  once  said  to  me  with  a  smile,  when  asked 
as  to  his  methods  of  working,  that  he  had  never 
done  any  work  all  his  life.  The  value  of  this 
mastery  of  details  was  seen  when  a  bill  came  to 
be  debated  in  Committee.  It  was  impossible  to 
catch  Mr.  Gladstone  tripping  on  a  point  of  fact, 
or  unprepared  with  a  reply  to  the  arguments 
of  an  opponent.  He  seemed  to  revel  in  the 
toil  of  mastering  a  tangle  of  technical  details. 

It  is  long  since  England,  in  this  respect  not 
favoured  by  her  parliamentary  system,  has  pro¬ 
duced  a  great  foreign  minister,  nor  has  that  title 
been  claimed  for  Mr.  Gladstone.  But  he  showed 
on  several  occasions  both  his  independence  of 
tradition  and  his  faith  in  broad  principles  as  fit 
to  be  applied  in  international  relations;  and  his 
action  in  that  field,  though  felt  only  at  intervals, 


444  Biographical  Studies 

has  left  abiding  results  in  European  history.  In 
1851,  he  being  then  still  a  Tory,  his  pamphlet 
denouncing  the  cruelties  of  the  Bourbon  govern¬ 
ment  of  Naples,  and  the  sympathy  he  subse¬ 
quently  avowed  with  the  national  movement  in 
Italy,  gave  that  movement  a  new  standing  in 
Europe  by  powerfully  recommending  it  to  English 
opinion.  In  1870  the  prompt  action  of  his  ministry 
in  arranging  a  treaty  for  the  neutrality  of  Belgium 
on  the  outbreak  of  the  war  between  France  and 
Germany,  averted  the  risk  that  Belgium  might 
be  drawn  into  the  strife.  In  1871,  by  concluding 
the  treaty  of  Washington,  which  provided  for  the 
settlement  by  arbitration  of  the  Alabama  claims, 
he  not  only  set  a  precedent  full  of  promise  for 
the  future,  but  delivered  England  from  what 
would  have  been,  in  case  of  her  being  at  war  with 
any  European  power,  a  danger  fatal  to  her  ocean 
commerce.  And,  in  1876,  his  onslaught  upon  the 
Turks,  after  the  Bulgarian  massacres,  roused  an 
intense  feeling  in  England,  turning  the  current  of 
opinion  so  decisively  that  Disraeli’s  ministry  were 
forced  to  leave  the  Sultan  to  his  fate,  and  thus 
became  a  cause  of  the  ultimate  deliverance  of 
Bulgaria,  Eastern  Rumelia,  Bosnia,  and  Thessaly 
from  Mussulman  tyranny.  Few  English  states¬ 
men  have  equally  earned  the  gratitude  of  the 
oppressed. 

Nothing  lay  nearer  to  his  heart  than  the  protec¬ 
tion  of  the  Christians  of  the  East.  His  sense  of 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  445 

personal  duty  to  them  was  partly  due  to  the 
feeling  that  the  Crimean  War  had  prolonged  the 
rule  of  the  Turk,  and  had  thus  imposed  a  special 
responsibility  on  Britain,  and  on  the  members 
of  Lord  Aberdeen’s  cabinet  which  drifted  into 
that  war.  Twenty  years  after  the  agitation  of 
1876,  and  when  he  had  finally  retired  from 
Parliament  and  political  life,  the  massacres  per¬ 
petrated  by  the  Sultan  on  his  Armenian  subjects 
brought  him  once  more  into  the  field,  and 
his  last  speech  in  public  (delivered  at  Liverpool 
in  the  autumn  of  1896)  was  a  powerful  argument 
in  favour  of  British  intervention  to  rescue  the 
Eastern  Christians.  In  the  following  spring  he 
followed  this  up  by  a  pamphlet  on  behalf  of  the 
freedom  of  Crete.  In  neither  of  these  two  cases 
did  success  crown  his  efforts,  for  the  government, 
commanding  a  large  majority  in  Parliament, 
pursued  the  course  upon  which  it  had  already 
entered.  Poignant  regrets  were  expressed  that 
Mr.  Gladstone  was  no  longer  able  to  take  ef¬ 
fective  action  in  the  cause  of  humanity ;  yet 
it  was  a  consolation  to  be  assured  that  age  and 
infirmity  had  not  dulled  his  sympathies  with 
that  cause. 

That  he  was  right  in  1876-78  in  the  view  he 
took  of  the  line  of  conduct  England  should  adopt 
towards  the  Turks  has  been  now  virtually 
admitted  even  by  his  opponents.  That  he  was 
also  right  in  1896,  when  urging  action  to  protect 


446  Biographical  Studies 

the  Eastern  Christians,  will  probably  be  admitted 
ten  years  hence,  when  the  facts  of  the  case  and 
the  nature  of  the  opportunity  that  existed  for 
taking  prompt  action  without  the  risk  of  a 
European  war  have  become  better  known.  In 
both  cases  it  was  not  merely  religious  sympathy, 
but  also  a  far-sighted  view  of  policy  that  governed 
his  judgment.  He  held  that  the  faults  of  Turkish 
rule  are  incurable,  and  that  the  Powers  of  Western 
and  Central  Europe  ought  to  aim  at  protecting 
the  subject  nationalities  and  by  degrees  extend¬ 
ing  self-government  to  them,  so  that  they  may 
grow  into  states,  and  in  time  be  able  to  restore 
prosperity  to  regions  ruined  by  long  misgovern- 
ment,  while  constituting  an  effective  barrier  to 
the  advance  of  Russia.  The  jealousies  of  the 
Powers  throw  obstacles  in  the  way  of  this  policy, 
but  it  is  a  safe  policy  for  England,  and  offers  the 
best  hope  for  the  peoples  of  the  East. 

The  facts  just  noted  prove  that  he  possessed 
and  exerted  a  capacity  for  initiative  in  foreign  as 
well  as  in  domestic  affairs.  In  the  Neapolitan  case, 
in  the  Alabama  case,  in  the  Bulgarian  case,  he 
acted  from  his  own  convictions,  with  no  previous 
suggestion  of  encouragement  from  his  party ;  and 
in  the  last  mentioned  instance  he  took  a  course 
which  did  not  at  the  moment  promise  any  politi¬ 
cal  gain,  and  which  seemed  to  the  English 
political  world  so  novel  and  even  startling  that 
no  ordinary  statesman  would  have  ventured  on  it. 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  447 

His  courage  was  indeed  one  of  the  most 
striking  parts  of  the  man.1  It  was  not  the  rash¬ 
ness  of  an  impetuous  nature,  for,  impetuous  as 
he  was  when  stirred  by  some  sudden  excitement, 
he  showed  an  Ulyssean  caution  whenever  he  took  a 
deliberate  survey  of  the  conditions  that  surrounded 
him.  It  was  the  proud  self-confidence  of  a  strong 
character,  which  was  willing  to  risk  fame  and 
fortune  in  pursuing  a  course  it  had  once  resolved 
upon ;  a  character  which  had  faith  in  its  own 
conclusions,  and  in  the  success  of  a  cause  conse¬ 
crated  by  principle ;  a  character  which  obstacles 
did  not  affright,  but  rather  roused  to  a  higher 
combative  energy.  Few  English  statesmen  have 
done  anything  so  bold  as  was  Mr.  Gladstone’s 
declaration  for  Irish  Home  Rule  in  1886.  He 
took  not  only  his  political  power  but  the  fame 
and  credit  of  his  whole  past  life  in  his  hand  when 
he  set  out  on  this  new  journey  at  seventy-seven 
years  of  age ;  for  it  was  quite  possible  that  the 
great  bulk  of  his  party  might  refuse  to  follow 
him,  and  he  be  left  exposed  to  derision  as  the 
chief  of  an  insignificant  group.  As  it  happened, 
the  bulk  of  the  party  did  follow  him,  though 
many  of  the  most  influential  refused  to  do  so. 

1  His  physical  courage  was  no  less  evident  than  his  moral.  For  two 
or  three  years  his  life  was  threatened,  and  policemen  were  told  off  to 
guard  him  wherever  he  went.  He  disliked  this  protection  so  much 
(though  the  Home  Office  thought  it  necessary)  that  he  used  to  escape  from 
the  House  of  Commons  by  a  little  frequented  exit,  give  the  policemen  the 
slip,  and  stroll  home  to  his  residence  along  the  Thames  Embankment  in 
the  small  hours  of  the  morning.  Fear  was  not  in  his  nature. 


448  Biographical  Studies 

But  neither  he  nor  any  one  else  could  have  fore¬ 
told  this  when  his  intentions  were  first  announced. 

We  may  now,  before  passing  away  from  the 
public  side  of  Mr.  Gladstone’s  career,  return  for 
a  moment  to  the  opposite  views  of  his  char¬ 
acter  which  were  indicated  some  pages  back. 
He  was  accused  of  sophistry,  of  unwisdom,  of 
want  of  patriotism,  of  lust  for  power.  Though  it 
is  difficult  to  sift  these  charges  without  discussing 
the  conduct  which  gave  rise  to  them,  a  task  impos¬ 
sible  here,  each  of  them  must  be  briefly  examined. 

The  first  charge  is  the  most  plausible.  His  in¬ 
genuity  in  discovering  arguments  and  stating  fine 
verbal  distinctions,  his  subtlety  in  discriminating 
between  views  or  courses  apparently  similar,  were 
excessive,  and  invited  misconstruction.  He  had  a 
tendency  to  persuade  himself,  quite  unconsciously, 
that  the  course  he  desired  to  take  was  a  course 
which  the  public  interest  required.  His  acuteness 
soon  found  reasons  for  that  course ;  the  warmth 
of  his  emotions  enforced  the  reasons.  It  was  a 
dangerous  tendency,  but  it  does  not  impeach  his 
honesty  of  purpose,  the  influence  which  his  predi¬ 
lections  unconsciously  exerted  upon  his  judgment 
appeared  also  in  his  theological  and  literary 
inquiries.  I  can  recall  no  instance  in  which  he 
wilfully  misstated  a  fact,  or  simulated  a  feeling,  or 
used  an  argument  which  he  knew  to  be  unsound. 
He  did  not,  as  does  the  sophist,  attempt  “to  make 
the  worse  appear  the  better  reason.” 


William  Ewart  Gladstone 


449 


His  wisdom  will  be  differently  judged  by 
those  who  condemn  or  approve  the  chief  acts  of 
his  policy.  But  it  deserves  to  be  noted  that  all 
the  legislation  he  passed,  even  the  measures 
which,  like  the  Irish  Church  Disestablishment 
Bill,  exposed  him  to  angry  attacks  at  the  time, 
have  now  been  approved  by  the  all  but  unan¬ 
imous  judgment  of  Englishmen.1  The  same 
may  be  said  of  two  acts  which  brought  much 
invective  upon  him  —  his  settlement  of  the 
Alabama  claims,  one  of  the  wisest  strokes  of 
foreign  policy  ever  accomplished  by  a  British 
minister,  and  his  protest  against  a  support  of  the 
Turks  in  and  after  1876.  I  pass  by  Irish  Home 
Rule,  because  the  wisdom  of  the  course  he  took 
must  be  tested  by  results  that  are  yet  unborn, 
as  I  pass  by  his  Egyptian  policy  in  1882-85, 
because  it  cannot  be  fairly  judged  till  the  facts 
have  been  fully  made  public.  He  may  be  open 
to  blame  for  his  participation  in  the  Crimean  War, 
for  his  mistaken  view  of  the  American  Civil  War, 
for  his  neglect  of  the  Transvaal  question  when 
he  took  office  in  1880,  and  for  his  omission  during 
his  earlier  career  to  recognise  the  gravity  of  Irish 
disaffection  and  to  study  its  causes.  I  have  heard 
him  lament  that  he  had  not  twenty  years  earlier 
given  the  same  attention  to  that  abiding  source  of 


1  The  late  Protestant  Episcopal  Primate  of  Ireland  said  that  Dis¬ 
establishment  had  proved  a  blessing  to  his  Church;  and  this  would  seem 
to  be  now  the  general  view  of  Irish  Protestants. 


45°  Biographical  Studies 

the  difficulties  of  England  which  he  gave  from 
1866  onwards.  If  in  these  instances  he  erred,  it 
must  be  remembered  that  he  erred  in  company 
with  nine-tenths  of  British  statesmen  in  both 
political  parties. 

Their  admiration  did  not  prevent  his  friends 
from  noting  tendencies  which  sometimes  led  him 
to  miscalculate  the  forces  he  had  to  deal  with. 
Being,  like  the  younger  Pitt,  extremely  sanguine, 
he  was  prone  to  underrate  difficulties.  Hopeful¬ 
ness  is  a  splendid  quality.  It  is  both  the  child  and 
the  parent  of  faith.  Without  it  neither  Mr.  Pitt 
nor  Mr.  Gladstone  could  have  done  what  they  did. 
But  it  disposes  its  possessor  to  not  sufficiently  allow 
for  the  dulness  or  the  prejudice  of  others.  So  too 
the  intensity  of  Mr.  Gladstone’s  own  feeling  made 
him  fail  to  realise  how  many  of  his  fellow-country¬ 
men  did  not  know  of,  or  were  not  shocked  by,  acts 
of  cruelty  and  injustice  which  had  roused  his  indig¬ 
nation.  If  his  hatred  of  ostentation  suffered  him  to 
perceive  that  a  nation,  however  well  assured  of  the 
reality  of  its  power  and  influence  in  the  world,  may 
also  desire  that  this  power  and  influence  should  be 
asserted  and  proclaimed  to  other  nations,  he  refused 
to  humour  that  desire.  He  had  a  contempt  for 
what  is  called  “  playing  to  the  gallery,”  with  a  deep 
sense  of  the  danger  of  stimulating  the  passions 
which  lead  to  aggression  and  war.  To  national 
honour,  as  he  conceived  it,  national  righteousness 
was  vital.  His  spirit  was  that  of  Lowell’s -lines  — 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  45 1 

I  love  my  country  so  as  only  they 

Who  love  a  mother  fit  to  die  for  may. 

I  love  her  old  renown,  her  ancient  fame : 

What  better  proof  than  that  I  loathe  her  shame  ? 

It  was  this  attitude  that  brought  on  him  the 
charge  of  wanting  patriotism,  a  charge  first,  I  think, 
insinuated  at  the  time  of  the  Alabama  arbitration, 
renewed  when  in  1876  he  was  accused  of  befriend¬ 
ing  Russia  and  neglecting  “  British  interests,”  and 
sedulously  repeated  thereafter,  although  in  those 
two  instances  the  result  had  proved  him  right. 
There  was  this  much  to  give  a  kind  of  colour  to 
the  charge,  that  he  had  scrupulously,  perhaps  too 
scrupulously,  refrained  from  extolling  the  material 
power  of  England,  preferring  to  insist  upon  her 
responsibilities;  that  he  was  known  to  regret  the 
constant  increase  of  naval  and  military  expendi¬ 
ture,  and  that  he  had  several  times  taken  a  course 
which  honour  and  prudence  seemed  to  him  to  rec¬ 
ommend,  but  which  had  offended  the  patriots  of 
the  music-halls.  But  it  was  an  unjust  charge,  for 
no  man  had  a  warmer  pride  in  England,  a  higher 
sense  of  her  greatness  and  her  mission. 

Was  he  too  fond  of  power?  Like  other 
strong  men,  he  enjoyed  it.1  That  to  secure  it 
he  ever  either  adopted  or  renounced  an  opinion, 

1  His  abdication  of  leadership  in  1875  was  meant  to  be  final,  though 
when  the  urgency  of  Eastern  affairs  had  drawn  him  back  into  strife,  the 
old  ardour  revived,  and  he  resumed  the  place  of  Prime  Minister  in  1880. 
It  has  been  often  said  that  he  would  have  done  better  to  retire  from  public 
life  in  1880,  or  in  1885,  yet  the  most  striking  proofs  both  of  his  courage 
and  of  his  physical  energy  were  given  in  the  latest  part  of  his  career. 


45  2  Biographical  Studies 

those  who  understood  and  watched  the  workings 
of  his  mind  could  not  believe.  He  was  not  only 
too  conscientious,  but  too  proud  to  forego  any  of 
his  convictions,  and  there  were  not  a  few  occasions 
when  he  took  a  course  which  considerations  of 
personal  interest  would  have  forbidden.  He  did 
not  love  office,  feeling  himself  happier  without  its 
cares,  and  when  he  accepted  it  did  so,  I  think,  in 
the  belief  that  there  was  work  to  be  done  which 
it  was  laid  upon  him  individually  to  do.  His 
changes  sprang  naturally  from  the  development  of 
his  own  ideas  or  (as  in  the  case  of  his  Irish  policy) 
from  the  teaching  of  facts.  He  sometimes  so  far 
yielded  to  his  colleagues  as  to  sanction  steps  which 
he  thought  not  the  best,  and  may  in  this  have 
sometimes  erred ;  yet  compromises  are  unavoid¬ 
able,  for  no  Cabinet  could  be  kept  together  if  its 
members  did  not  now  and  then,  in  matters  not 
essential,  yield  to  one  another.  When  all  the  facts 
of  his  life  come  to  be  known,  instances  may  be  dis¬ 
closed  in  which  he  was  the  victim  of  his  own  casu¬ 
istry  or  of  his  deference  to  Peel’s  maxim  that  a 
minister  should  not  avow  a  change  of  view  until 
the  time  has  come  to  give  effect  to  it.  But  it  will 
also  be  made  clear  that  he  strove  to  obey  his  con¬ 
science,  that  he  acted  with  an  ever-present  sense 
of  his  responsibility  to  the  Almighty,  and  that  he 
was  animated  by  an  unselfish  enthusiasm  for 
humanity,  enlightenment,  and  freedom. 

Whether  he  was  a  good  judge  of  men  was  a 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  453 

question  much  discussed  among  his  friends. 
With  all  his  astuteness,  he  was  in  some  ways 
curiously  simple ;  with  all  his  caution,  he  was  by 
nature  unsuspicious,  disposed  to  treat  all  men  as 
honest  till  they  gave  him  strong  reasons  for  think¬ 
ing  otherwise.  Those  who  professed  sympathy 
with  his  views  and  aims  sometimes  succeeded  in 
inspiring  more  confidence  than  they  deserved. 
But  where  this  perturbing  influence  was  absent 
he  showed  plenty  of  insight,  and  would  pass 
shrewd  judgments  on  the  politicians  around  him, 
permitting  neither  their  behaviour  towards  him¬ 
self  nor  his  opinion  of  their  moral  character  to 
affect  his  estimate  of  their  talents.  In  making 
appointments  in  the  Civil  Service,  or  in  the 
Established  Church,  he  rose  to  a  far  higher 
standard  of  public  duty  than  Palmerston  or 
Disraeli  had  reached  or  cared  to  reach,  taking 
great  pains  to  find  the  fittest  men,  and  giving 
little  weight  to  political  considerations.1 

His  public  demeanour,  and  especially  his 
excitability  and  vehemence  of  speech,  made 
people  attribute  to  him  an  overbearing  disposi¬ 
tion  and  an  irritable  temper.  In  private  one  did 
not  find  these  faults.  Masterful  he  certainly 
was,  both  in  speech  and  in  action.  His  ardent 
manner,  the  intensity  of  his  look,  the  dialectical 
vigour  with  which  he  pressed  an  argument,  were 

1  For  instance,  he  recommended  Dr.  Stubbs  for  a  bishopric  and  Sir 
John  Holker  for  a  lord  justiceship,  knowing  both  of  them  to  be  Tories. 


454  Biographical  Studies 

apt  to  awe  people  who  knew  him  but  slightly, 
and  make  them  abandon  resistance.  A  gifted 
though  somewhat  erratic  politician  of  long  bygone 
days  told  me  how  he  once  fared  when  he  had  risen 
in  the  House  of  Commons  to  censure  some  act 
of  his  leader.  “  I  had  not  gone  on  three  minutes 
when  Gladstone  turned  round  and  gazed  at  me 
so  that  I  had  to  sit  down  in  the  middle  of  a 
sentence.  I  could  not  help  it.  There  was  no 
standing  his  eye.”  But  he  neither  meant  nor 
wished  to  beat  down  his  opponents  by  mere 
authority.  One  who  knew  him  as  few  people 
did  observed  to  me,  “  When  you  are  arguing 
with  Mr.  Gladstone,  you  must  never  let  him 
think  he  has  convinced  you  unless  you  are  really 
convinced.  Persist  in  repeating  your  view,  and 
if  you  are  unable  to  cope  with  him  in  skill  of 
fence,  say  bluntly  that  for  all  his  ingenuity  and 
authority  you  think  he  is  wrong,  and  you  retain 
your  own  opinion.  If  he  respects  you  as  a  man 
who  knows  something  of  the  subject,  he  will  be 
impressed  by  your  opinion,  and  it  will  afterwards 
have  due  weight  with  him.”  In  his  own  cabinet 
he  was  willing  to  listen  patiently  to  everybody’s 
V  views,  and,  indeed,  in  the  judgment  of  some  of 
his  colleagues,  was  not,  at  least  in  his  later 
years,  sufficiently  strenuous  in  asserting  and 
holding  to  his  own.  It-is^  no  secret  that  some 
of  the  most  important  decisions  of  the  ministry 
of  1880-85  were  taken  against  his  judgment, 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  455 

though,  when  they  had  been  adopted,  he  was,  of 
course,  bound  to  defend  them  in  Parliament  as  if 
they  had  received  his  individual  approval.  Nor, 
though  tenacious,  did  he  bear  malice  against  those 
who  had  baffled  him.  He  would  exert  his  full 
force  to  get  his  own  way,  but  if  he  could  not 
get  it,  accepted  the  position  with  good  temper.1 
He  was  too  proud  to  be  vindictive,  too  com¬ 
pletely  master  of  himself  to  be  betrayed  into 
angry  words.  Impatient  he  might  sometimes 
be  under  a  nervous  strain,  but  never  rude  or 
rough.  It  was  less  easy  to  determine  whether 
he  was  overmindful  of  injuries,  but  those  who 
had  watched  him  most  closely  held  that  mere 
opposition  or  even  insult  did  not  leave  a  per¬ 
manent  sting,  and  that  the  only  thing  he  could 
not  forget  or  forgive  was  faithlessness.  Himself 
a  model  of  loyalty  to  his  colleagues,  he  followed 
his  favourite  poet  in  consigning  the  traditori 
to  the  lowest  pit,  although,  like  all  statesmen, 
he  often  found  himself  obliged  to  work  with 
those  whom  he  distrusted. 

He  was  less  sensitive  than  Peel,  as  appeared 
from  his  attitude  toward  his  two  chief  opponents. 
Disraeli’s  attacks  did  not  seem  to  gall  him, 
perhaps  because,  although  he  recognised  the 
ability  and  admired  the  courage  of  his  adversary, 

1  His  respect  and  regard  for  Mr.  Bright  were  entirely  unaffected  by  the 
fact  that  Mr.  Bright’s  opposition  to  the  Home  Rule  Bill  of  1886  had  been 
the  chief  cause  of  its  defeat. 


45 6  Biographical  Studies 

he  did  not  respect  Disraeli’s  character,  remem¬ 
bering  his  behaviour  to  Peel,  and  thinking  him 
habitually  untruthful.  Yet  he  never  attacked 
Disraeli  personally.  There  was  another  of  his 
opponents  of  whom  he  entertained  a  specially 
unfavourable  opinion,  but  no  one  could  have 
told  from  his  speeches  what  that  opinion  was. 
Against  Lord  Salisbury,  his  chief  antagonist 
from  1 88 1  onwards,  he  showed  no  resentment, 
though  Lord  Salisbury  had  more  than  once 
spoken  discourteously  of  him.  In  1890  he  re¬ 
marked  to  me  apropos  of  some  attack,  “  I  have 
never  felt  angry  at  what  Salisbury  has  said  about 
me.  His  mother  was  very  kind  to  me  when  I 
was  quite  a  young  man,  and  I  remember  Salis¬ 
bury  as  a  little  fellow  in  a  red  frock  rolling  about 
on  the  ottoman.” 

That  his  temper  was  naturally  hot,  no  one 
who  looked  at  him  could  doubt.  But  he  had  it 
in  such  tight  control,  and  it  was  so  free  from 
anything  acrid  or  malignant,  that  it  had  become 
a  good  temper,  worthy  of  a  fine  nature.  However 
vehement  his  expressions,  they  did  not  wound 
or  humiliate,  and  those  younger  men  who  had  to 
deal  with  him  were  not  afraid  of  a  sharp  answer 
or  an  impatient  repulse.  He  was  cast  in  too  large 
a  mould  to  have  the  pettiness  of  ruffled  vanity 
or  to  abuse  his  predominance  by  treating  any 
one  as  an  inferior.  His  manners  were  the 
manners  of  the  old  time,  easy  but  stately.  Like 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  457 

his  oratory,  they  were  in  what  Matthew  Arnold 
used  to  call  the  grand  style ;  and  the  contrast  in 
this  respect  between  him  and  some  of  those 
who  crossed  swords  with  him  in  literary  or 
theological  controversy  was  apparent.  His  in¬ 
tellectual  generosity  was  a  part  of  the  same 
largeness  of  nature.  He  cordially  acknowledged 
his  indebtedness  to  those  who  helped  him  in 
any  piece  of  work,  received  their  suggestions 
candidly,  even  when  opposed  to  his  own  precon¬ 
ceived  notions,  did  not  hesitate  to  confess  a 
mistake.  Those  who  know  the  abundance  of 
their  resources,  and  have  conquered  fame,  can 
doubtless  afford  to  be  generous.  Julius  Caesar 
was,  and  George  Washington,  and  so,  in  a 
different  sphere,  were  Isaac  Newton  and  Charles 
Darwin.  But  the  instances  to  the  contrary  are 
so  numerous  that  one  may  say  of  magnanimity 
that  it  is  among  the  rarest  as  well  as  the  finest 
ornaments  of  character. 

The  essential  dignity  of  Mr.  Gladstone’s  na¬ 
ture  was  never  better  seen  than  during  the  last 
few  years  of  his  life,  after  he  had  finally  re¬ 
tired  (in  1894)  from  public  life.  He  indulged 
in  no  vain  regrets,  nor  was  there  any  founda¬ 
tion  for  the  rumours,  so  often  circulated,  that  he 
thought  of  re-entering  the  arena  of  strife.  He 
spoke  with  no  bitterness  of  those  who  had 
opposed,  and  sometimes  foiled,  him  in  the  past. 
He  gave  vent  to  no  criticisms  of  those  who 


45  8  Biographical  Studies 

from  time  to  time  filled  the  place  that  had  been 
his  in  the  government  of  the  country  or  the 
leadership  of  his  party.  Although  his  opinion 
on  current  questions  was  frequently  solicited,  he 
scarcely  ever  allowed  it  to  be  known,  lest  it 
should  embarrass  his  successors  in  the  leadership 
of  the  party,  and  never  himself  addressed  the 
nation,  except  (as  already  mentioned)  on  behalf 
of  what  he  deemed  a  sacred  cause,  altogether 
above  party  —  the  discharge  by  Britain  of  her 
duty  to  the  victims  of  the  Turk.  As  soon  as  an 
operation  for  cataract  had  enabled  him  to  resume 
his  habit  of  working  for  seven  hours  a  day,  he 
devoted  himself  with  his  old  ardour  to  the  prep¬ 
aration  of  an  edition  of  Bishop  Butler’s  works, 
resumed  his  multifarious  reading,  planned  (as  he 
told  me  in  1896)  a  treatise  on  the  Olympian  re¬ 
ligion,  and  filled  up  the  interstices  of  his  working¬ 
time  with  studies  on  Homer  which  he  had  been 
previously  unable  to  complete.  No  trace  of  the 
moroseness  of  old  age  appeared  in  his  manners  or 
his  conversation,  nor  did  he,  though  profoundly 
grieved  at  some  of  the  events  which  he  witnessed, 
and  owning  himself  disappointed  at  the  slow  ad¬ 
vance  made  by  a  cause  dear  to  him,  appear  less 
hopeful  than  in  earlier  days  of  the  general  prog¬ 
ress  of  the  world,  or  less  confident  in  the  benefi¬ 
cent  power  of  freedom  to  promote  the  happiness 
of  his  country.  The  stately  simplicity  which  had 
always  charmed  those  who  saw  him  in  private, 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  459 

seemed  more  beautiful  than  ever  in  this  quiet 
evening  of  a  long  and  sultry  day.  His  intellec¬ 
tual  powers  were  unimpaired,  his  thirst  for  know¬ 
ledge  undiminished.  But  a  placid  stillness  had 
fallen  upon  him  and  his  household;  and  in  seeing 
the  tide  of  his  life  begin  slowly  to  ebb,  one 
thought  of  the  lines  of  his  illustrious  contemporary 
and  friend :  — 

Such  a  tide  as  moving  seems  asleep, 

Too  full  for  sound  or  foam, 

When  that  which  drew  from  out  the  boundless  deep 
Turns  again  home. 

Adding  to  his  grace  of  manner  a  memory 
of  extraordinary  strength  and  quickness  and  an 
amazing  vivacity  and  variety  of  mental  force,  any 
one  can  understand  how  fascinating  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone  was  in  society.  He  enjoyed  it  to  the  last, 
talking  as  earnestly  and  joyously  at  eighty-seven  as 
he  had  done  at  twenty  on  every  topic  that  came 
up,  and  exerting  himself  with  equal  zest  whether 
his  interlocutor  was  an  archbishop  or  a  youthful 
curate.  Though  his  party  used  to  think  that  he 
overvalued  the  political  influence  of  the  great 
families,  allotting  them  rather  more  than  their  share 
of  honours  and  appointments,  no  one  was  person¬ 
ally  more  free  from  that  taint  of  snobbishness 
which  is  frequently  charged  upon  Englishmen. 
He  gave  the  best  he  had  to  everybody  alike, 
paying  to  men  of  learning  and  letters  a  respect 
which  in  England  they  seldom  receive  from  the 


460  Biographical  Studies 

magnates  who  lead  society.  And  although  he 
was  scrupulously  observant  of  the  rules  of  pre¬ 
cedence  and  conventions  of  social  life,  it  was 
easy  to  see  that  neither  rank  nor  wealth  had 
that  importance  in  his  eyes  which  the  latter 
nowadays  commands.  Dispensing  titles  and 
decorations  with  a  liberal  hand,  his  pride  always 
refused  such  so-called  honours  for  himself. 

It  was  often  said  of  him  that  he  lacked 
humour;  but  this  was  only  so  far  true  that  he 
was  apt  to  throw  into  small  matters  more  force 
and  moral  earnestness  than  were  needed,  and  to 
honour  with  a  refutation  opponents  whom  a 
little  light  sarcasm  would  have  better  reduced 
to  their  insignificance.1  In  private  he  was  wont 
both  to  tell  and  to  enjoy  good  stories ;  while 
in  Parliament,  though  his  tone  was  generally 
earnest,  he  could  display  such  effective  powers 
of  banter  and  ridicule  as  to  make  people 
wonder  why  they  were  so  rarely  put  forth. 
Much  of  what  passes  in  London  for  humour 
is  mere  cynicism,  and  he  hated  cynicism  so 

1  Usually  overanxious  to  vindicate  his  own  consistency,  he  showed  on 
one  occasion  a  capacity  for  recognising  the  humorous  side  of  a  position 
into  which  he  had  been  brought.  In  a  debate  which  arose  in  1891 
frequent  references  had  been  made  to  a  former  speech  in  which  he  had 
pronounced  a  highly-coloured  panegyric  upon  the  Church  of  England  in 
Wales,  the  disestablishment  of  which  he  had  subsequently  become  willing 
to  support.  He  replied,  “  Many  references  have  been  made  to  a  former 
speech  of  mine  on  this  subject,  and  I  am  not  prepared  to  deny  that  in  that 
speech,  when  closely  scrutinised,  there  may  appear  to  be  present  some 
element  of  exaggeration.”  The  House  dissolved  in  laughter,  and  no 
further  reference  was  made  to  the  old  speech. 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  461 

heartily  as  to  dislike  even  humour  when  it  had 
a  cynical  flavour.  Wit  he  enjoyed,  but  did  not 
produce.  The  turn  of  his  mind  was  not  to 
brevity,  point,  and  condensation.  He  sometimes 
struck  off  a  telling  phrase,  but  seldom  polished 
an  epigram.  His  conversation  was  luminous 
rather  than  sparkling;  you  were  interested  and 
instructed  while  you  listened,  but  it  was  not 
so  much  the  phrases  as  the  general  effect  that 
dwelt  in  your  memory.  An  acute  observer  once 
said  to  me  that  Mr.  Gladstone  showed  in  argu¬ 
ment  a  knack  of  hitting  the  nail  not  quite  on 
the  head.  The  criticism  was  so  far  just  that 
he  was  less  certain  to  go  straight  to  the  vital 
issue  in  a  controversy  than  one  expected  from 
his  force  and  keenness. 

After  the  death  of  Thomas  Carlyle  he  was 
probably  the  best  talker  in  London,  and  a  talker 
in  one  respect  more  agreeable  than  either  Carlyle 
or  Macaulay,  inasmuch  as  he  was  no  less  ready 
to  listen  than  to  speak,  and  never  wearied  the 
dinner-table  by  a  monologue.  His  simplicity, 
his  spontaneity,  his  geniality  and  courtesy,  as  well 
as  the  fund  of  knowledge  and  of  personal  recol¬ 
lections  at  his  command,  made  him  so  popular 
in  society  that  his  opponents  used  to  say  it  was 
dangerous  to  meet  him,  because  one  might  be 
forced  to  leave  off  hating  him.  He  was,  per¬ 
haps,  too  prone  to  go  on  talking  upon  the 
subject  which  filled  his  mind  at  the  moment ; 


462  Biographical  Studies 

nor  was  it  easy  to  divert  his  attention  to  some¬ 
thing  else  which  others  might  deem  more  im¬ 
portant.1  Those  who  stayed  with  him  in  the 
same  country  house  sometimes  complained  that 
the  perpetual  display  of  force  and  eagerness 
tired  them,  as  one  tires  of  watching  the  rush 
of  Niagara.  His  guests,  however,  did  not  feel 
this,  for  his  own  home  life  was  quiet  and  smooth. 
He  read  and  wrote  a  good  many  hours  daily,  but 
never  sat  up  late,  almost  always  slept  soundly, 
never  seemed  oppressed  or  driven  to  strain 
his  strength.  With  all  his  impetuosity,  he 
was  regular,  systematic,  and  deliberate  in  his 
habits  and  ways  of  doing  business.  A  swift 
reader  and  a  surprisingly  swift  writer,  he  was 
always  occupied,  and  was  skilful  in  using  even 
the  scraps  and  fragments  of  his  time.  No  pres¬ 
sure  of  work  made  him  fussy,  nor  could  any  one 
remember  to  have  seen  him  in  a  hurry. 

The  best  proof  of  his  swiftness,  industry,  and 
skill  in  economising  time  is  supplied  by  the 
quantity  of  his  literary  work,  which,  consider¬ 
ing  the  abstruse  nature  of  the  subjects  to  which 
much  of  it  is  related,  would  have  been  credit¬ 
able  to  the  diligence  of  a  German  professor 

1  His  Oxford  contemporary  and  friend,  the  late  Mr.  Milnes  Gaskell, 
told  me  that  when  Mr.  Gladstone  was  undergoing  his  viva  voce  examina¬ 
tion  for  his  degree,  the  examiner,  satisfied  with  the  candidate’s  answers  on 
a  particular  matter,  said,  “And  now,  Mr.  Gladstone,  we  will  leave  that 
part  of  the  subject.”  “  No,”  replied  the  examinee,  “  we  will,  if  you  please, 
not  leave  it  yet.”  Whereupon  he  proceeded  to  pour  forth  a  further  flood 
of  knowledge  and  disquisition. 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  463 

sitting  alone  in  his  study.  The  merits  of  the 
work  have  been  disputed.  Mankind  are  slow  to 
credit  the  same  person  with  eminence  in  various 
fields.  When  they  read  the  prose  of  a  great 
poet,  they  try  it  by  severer  tests  than  would  be 
applied  to  other  writers.  When  a  painter  has 
won  credit  by  his  landscapes  or  his  cattle  pieces, 
he  is  seldom  encouraged  to  venture  into  other 
lines.  So  Mr.  Gladstone’s  reputation  as  an 
orator  stood  in  his  own  light  when  he  ap¬ 
peared  as  an  author.  He  was  read  by  thou¬ 
sands  who  would  not  have  looked  at  the  article 
or  book  had  it  borne  some  other  name ;  but  he 
was  judged  by  the  standard,  not  of  his  finest 
printed  speeches,  for  his  speeches  were  seldom 
models  of  composition,  but  rather  by  the  impres¬ 
sion  which  his  finest  speeches  made  on  those 
who  heard  them.  Since  his  warmest  admirers 
could  not  claim  for  him  as  a  writer  of  prose  any 
such  pre-eminence  as  belonged  to  him  as  a 
speaker,  it  followed  that  his  written  work  was 
not  duly  appreciated.  Had  he  been  a  writer  and 
nothing  else,  he  would  have  been  eminent  and 
powerful  by  his  pen. 

He  might,  however,  have  failed  to  secure  a  place 
in  the  front  rank.  His  style  was  forcible,  copious, 
rich  with  various  knowledge,  warm  with  the 
ardour  of  his  temperament.  But  it  suffered  from 
an  inborn  tendency  to  exuberance  which  the  long 
practice  of  oratory  had  confirmed.  It  was  diffuse, 


464  Biographical  Studies 

apt  to  pursue  a  topic  into  details,  when  these  might 
have  been  left  to  the  reader’s  own  reflection.  It 
was  redundant,  employing  more  words  than  were 
needed  to  convey  the  substance.  It  was  un¬ 
chastened,  indulging  too  freely  in  tropes  and 
metaphors,  in  quotations  and  adapted  phrases 
even  when  the  quotation  added  nothing  to  the 
sense  but  was  suggested  merely  by  some  associa¬ 
tion  in  his  own  mind.  Thus  it  seldom  reached 
a  high  level  of  purity  and  grace,  and  though  one 
might  excuse  the  faults  as  natural  to  the  work 
of  a  swift  and  busy  man,  they  were  sufficient 
to  reduce  the  pleasure  to  be  derived  from  the 
form  and  dress  of  his  thoughts.  Nevertheless 
there  are  not  a  few  passages  of  rare  merit, 
both  in  the  books  and  in  the  articles,  among 
which  may  be  cited  (not  as  exceptionally  good, 
but  as  typical  of  his  strong  points)  the  strik¬ 
ing  picture  of  his  own  youthful  feeling  toward 
the  Church  of  England  contained  in  the  Chapter 
of  Atitobiography,  and  the  refined  criticism  of 
Robert  Elsmere,  published  in  1888.  Almost 
the  last  thing  he  wrote,  a  pamphlet  on  the 
Greek  and  Cretan  question,  published  in  the 
spring  of  1897,  has  the  force  and  cogency  of  his 
best  days.  Two  things  were  never  wanting  to 
him :  vigour  of  expression  and  an  admirable 
command  of  appropriate  words. 

His  writings  fall  into  three  classes :  political, 
theological,  and  literary  —  the  last  chiefly  con- 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  465 

sisting  of  his  books  and  articles  upon  Homer 
and  the  Homeric  question.  All  the  political 
writings,  except  the  books  on  The  State  in  its 
Relations  to  the  Church  and  Church  Principles 
considered  in  their  Results ,  belong  to  the  class 
of  occasional  literature,  being  pamphlets  or 
articles  produced  with  a  view  to  some  cur¬ 
rent  crisis  or  controversy.  They  are  valuable 
chiefly  as  proceeding  from  one  who  bore  a 
leading  part  in  the  affairs  they  relate  to,  and 
as  embodying  vividly  the  opinions  and  aspira¬ 
tions  of  the  moment,  less  frequently  in  respect 
of  permanent  lessons  of  political  wisdom,  such 
as  one  finds  in  Machiavelli  or  Tocqueville  or 
Edmund  Burke.  Like  Pitt  and  Peel,  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone  had  a  mind  which,  whatever  its  original 
tendencies,  had  come  to  be  rather  practical  than 
meditative.  He  was  fond  of  generalisations  and 
principles,  but  they  were  always  directly  related 
to  the  questions  that  came  before  him  in  actual 
politics;  and  the  number  of  weighty  maxims  or 
illuminative  suggestions  to  be  found  in  his  writ¬ 
ings  and  speeches  is  small  in  proportion  to  the 
sustained  vigour  they  display.  Even  Disraeli, 
though  his  views  were  often  fanciful  and  his 
epigrams  often  forced,  gives  us  more  frequently 
a  brilliant  (if  only  half  true)  historical  aperfu ,  or 
throws  a  flash  of  light  into  some  corner  of  human 
character.  Of  the  theological  essays,  which  are 
mainly  apologetic  and  concerned  with  the  authen- 


466  Biographical  Studies 

ticity  and  authority  of  Scripture,  it  is  enough  to 
say  that  they  were  the  work  of  an  accomplished 
amateur,  who  had  been  too  busy  to  follow  the  prog¬ 
ress  of  critical  inquiry.  His  Homeric  treatises, 
the  most  elaborate  piece  of  work  that  proceeded 
from  Mr.  Gladstone’s  pen,  are  in  one  sense  worth¬ 
less,  in  another  sense  admirable.  Those  parts  of 
them  which  deal  with  early  Greek  mythology, 
genealogy,  and  religion,  and,  in  a  less  degree,  the 
theories  about  Homeric  geography  and  the  use 
of  Homeric  epithets,  have  been  condemned  by 
the  unanimous  voice  of  scholars  as  fantastic. 
The  premises  are  assumed  without  sufficient  in¬ 
vestigation,  while  the  reasonings  are  fine-drawn 
and  flimsy.  Extraordinary  ingenuity  is  shown 
in  piling  up  a  lofty  fabric,  but  the  foundation  is 
of  sand,  and  the  edifice  has  hardly  a  solid  wall 
or  beam  in  it.  A  conjecture  is  treated  as  a  fact ; 
then  an  inference,  possible  but  not  certain,  is 
drawn  from  this  conjecture ;  a  second  possible 
inference  is  based  upon  the  first;  and  we  are 
made  to  forget  that  the  probability  of  this  second 
is  at  most  only  half  the  probability  of  the  first. 
So  the  process  goes  on;  and  when  the  super¬ 
structure  is  complete,  the  reader  is  provoked 
to  perceive  how  much  dialectical  skill  has  been 
wasted  upon  a  series  of  hypotheses  which  a  breath 
of  common-sense  criticism  dissipates.  If  one  is 
asked  to  explain  the  weakness  in  this  particular 
department  of  a  mind  otherwise  so  strong,  the 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  467 

answer  would  seem  to  be  that  the  element  of 
fancifulness  in  Mr.  Gladstone’s  intellect,  and  his 
tendency  to  mistake  mere  argumentation  for 
verification,  were  checked  in  practical  politics  by 
constant  intercourse  with  friends  and  colleagues 
as  well  as  by  the  need  of  convincing  visible 
audiences,  while  in  theological  or  historical  in¬ 
quiries  his  ingenuity  roamed  with  fatal  freedom 
over  wide  plains  where  no  obstacles  checked 
its  course.  Something  may  also  be  due  to  the 
fact  that  his  philosophical  and  historical  educa¬ 
tion  was  received  at  a  time  when  the  modern 
critical  spirit  and  the  canons  it  recognises  had 
scarcely  begun  to  assert  themselves  at  Oxford. 
Similar  defects  may  be  discerned  in  other  eminent 
writers  of  his  own  and  the  preceding  generation 
of  Oxford  men,  defects  from  which  persons  of 
inferior  power  in  later  days  might  be  free.  In 
some  of  these  writers,  and  particularly  in  Cardinal 
Newman,  the  contrast  between  dialectical  acumen, 
coupled  with  surpassing  rhetorical  skill,  and  the 
vitiation  of  the  argument  by  a  want  of  the  critical 
faculty,  is  scarcely  less  striking ;  and  the  example 
of  that  illustrious  man  suggests  that  the  domi¬ 
nance  of  the  theological  view  of  literary  and 
historical  problems,  a  dominance  evident  in  Mr. 
Gladstone,  counts  for  something  in  producing  the 
phenomenon. 

With  these  defects,  Mr.  Gladstone’s  Homeric 
work  had  the  merit  of  being  based  on  a  full 


468  Biographical  Studies 

and  thorough  knowledge  of  the  Homeric  text. 
He  had  seen,  at  a  time  when  few  people  in 
England  had  seen  it,  that  the  Homeric  poems 
are  an  historical  source  of  the  highest  value,  a 
treasure-house  of  data  for  the  study  of  early 
Greek  life  and  thought,  an  authority  all  the  more 
trustworthy  because  an  unconscious  authority, 
addressing  not  posterity  but  contemporaries. 
This  mastery  of  the  matter  contained  in  the 
poems  enabled  him  to  present  valuable  pictures 
of  the  political  and  social  life  of  Homeric  Greece, 
while  the  interspersed  literary  criticisms  are  often 
subtle  and  suggestive,  erring,  when  they  do  err, 
chiefly  through  the  over-earnestness  of  his  mind. 
He  often  takes  the  poet  too  seriously;  reading 
an  ethical  purpose  into  descriptive  or  dramatic 
touches  which  are  merely  descriptive  or  dramatic. 
Passages  whose  moral  tendency  offends  him  are 
reprobated  as  later  insertions  with  a  naivete  which 
forgets  the  character  of  a  primitive  age.  But  he 
has  for  his  author  not  only  that  sympathy  which  is 
the  best  basis  for  criticism,  but  a  justness  of  poetic 
taste  which  the  learned  and  painstaking  German 
commentator  frequently  wants.  That  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone  was  a  sound  scholar  in  that  narrower  sense  of 
the  word  which  denotes  a  grammatical  and  literary 
command  of  Greek  and  Latin,  goes  without  say¬ 
ing.  Men  of  his  generation  kept  a  closer  hold 
upon  the  ancient  classics  than  we  do  to-day ;  and 
his  habit  of  reading  Greek  for  the  sake  of  his 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  469 

Homeric  studies,  and  Latin  for  the  sake  of  his 
theological,  made  this  familiarity  more  than 
usually  thorough.  Like  most  Etonians,  he  loved 
and  knew  the  poets  by  preference.  Dante  was 
his  favourite  poet,  perhaps  because  Dante  is  the 
most  theological  and  ethical  of  the  great  poets, 
and  because  the  tongue  and  the  memories  of  Italy 
had  a  peculiar  attraction  for  him.  He  used  to  say 
that  he  found  Dante’s  thought  incomparably  in¬ 
spiring,  but  hard  to  follow,  it  was  so  high  and  so 
abstract.  Theology  claimed  a  place  beside  poetry ; 
history  came  next,  though  he  did  not  study  it 
systematically.  It  seemed  odd  that  he  was  some¬ 
times  at  fault  in  the  constitutional  antiquities  of 
England ;  but  this  subject  was,  until  the  day  of 
Dr.  Stubbs,  pre-eminently  a  Whig  subject,  and 
Mr.  Gladstone  never  was  a  Whig,  never  learned 
to  think  upon  the  lines  of  the  great  Whigs  of 
former  days.  His  historical  knowledge  was  not 
exceptionally  wide,  but  it  was  generally  accurate 
in  matters  of  fact,  however  fanciful  he  might  be 
in  reasoning  from  the  facts,  however  wild  his 
conjectures  in  the  prehistoric  region.  In  meta¬ 
physics  strictly  so  called  his  reading  did  not  go 
far  beyond  those  companions  of  his  youth,  Aris¬ 
totle  and  Bishop  Butler ;  and  philosophical  specu¬ 
lation  interested  him  only  so  far  as  it  bore  on 
Christian  doctrine.  Keen  as  was  his  interest 
in  theology  and  in  history,  it  is  not  certain  that 
he  would  have  produced  work  of  permanent 


470  Biographical  Studies 

value  in  either  sphere  even  had  his  life  been 
wholly  devoted  to  study.  His  mind  seemed  to 
need  to  be  steadied,  his  ingenuity  restrained, 
by  having  to  deal  with  concrete  matter  for  a 
practical  end.  Neither,  in  spite  of  his  emi¬ 
nence  as  a  financier  and  an  advocate  of  free 
trade,  did  he  show  much  taste  for  economic 
studies.  On  practical  topics,  such  as  the  working 
of  protective  tariffs,  the  abuse  of  charitable  en¬ 
dowments,  the  development  of  fruit-culture  in 
England,  the  duty  of  liberal  giving  by  the  rich, 
the  utility  of  thrift  among  the  poor,  his  remarks 
were  full  of  point,  clearness,  and  good  sense,  but 
he  seldom  launched  out  into  the  wider  sea  of 
economic  theory.  He  took  a  first-class  in  mathe¬ 
matics  at  Oxford,  at  the  same  time  as  his  first 
in  classics,  but  did  not  pursue  the  subject  in 
later  life.  Regarding  the  sciences  of  experi¬ 
ment  and  observation,  he  seemed  to  feel  as  little 
curiosity  as  any  educated  man  who  notes  the 
enormous  part  they  play  in  the  modern  world 
can  feel.  Sayings  of  his  have  been  quoted  which 
show  that  he  imperfectly  comprehended  the  char¬ 
acter  of  the  evidence  they  rely  upon  and  of  the 
methods  they  employ.  On  one  occasion  he 
horrified  a  dinner-table  of  younger  friends  by  re¬ 
fusing  to  accept  some  of  the  most  certain  conclu¬ 
sions  of  modern  geology.  No  doubt  he  belonged, 
as  Lord  Derby  (the  Prime  Minister)  once  said  of 
himself,  to  a  pre-scientific  age.  Perhaps  he  was 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  471 

unconsciously  biassed  by  the  notion  that  such 
sciences  as  geology  and  biology,  for  instance,  were 
being  used  by  some  students  to  sap  the  founda¬ 
tions  of  revealed  religion.  But  I  can  recall 
no  sign  of  disposition  to  dissuade  free  inquiry 
either  into  those  among  the  sciences  of  nature 
which  have  been  supposed  to  touch  theology,  or 
into  the  date,  authorship,  and  authority  of  the 
books  of  the  Bible.  He  had  faith  not  only  in  his 
creed,  but  in  God  as  a  God  of  truth,  and  in  the 
power  of  research  to  elicit  truth. 

General  propositions  are  dangerous,  yet  it  seems 
safe  to  observe  that  great  men  have  seldom  been 
obscurantists  or  persecutors.  Either  the  sympathy 
with  intellectual  effort  which  is  natural  to  a  power¬ 
ful  intellect,  or  the  sense  that  free  inquiry,  though 
it  maybe  checked  by  repression  for  a  certain  time 
or  within  a  certain  area,  will  ultimately  have  its 
course,  dissuades  them  from  that  attempt  to  dam 
up  the  stream  of  thought  which  smaller  minds 
regard  as  the  obvious  expedient  for  saving  souls 
or  institutions. 

It  ought  to  be  added,  for  this  was  a  remarkable 
feature  of  his  character,  that  he  had  the  deepest 
reverence  for  the  great  poets  and  philosophers, 
placing  the  career  of  the  statesman  on  a  far  lower 
plane  than  that  of  those  who  rule  the  world  by 
their  thoughts  enshrined  in  literature.  He  ex¬ 
pressed  in  a  striking  letter  to  Tennyson’s  eldest  son 
his  sense  of  the  immense  superiority  of  the  poet’s 


47 2  Biographical  Studies 

life  and  work.  Once,  in  the  lobby  of  the  House 
of  Commons,  seeing  his  countenance  saddened  by 
the  troubles  of  Ireland,  I  told  him,  in  order  to 
divert  his  thoughts,  how  some  one  had  recently 
discovered  that  Dante  had  in  his  last  years  been 
appointed  at  Ravenna  to  a  lectureship  which 
raised  him  above  the  pinch  of  want.  Mr.  Glad¬ 
stone’s  face  lit  up  at  once,  and  he  said,  “  How 
strange  it  is  to  think  that  these  great  souls  whose 
words  are  a  beacon-light  to  all  the  generations 
that  have  come  after  them,  should  have  had  cares 
and  anxieties  to  vex  them  in  their  daily  life,  just 
like  the  rest  of  us  common  mortals.”  The  phrase 
reminded  me  that  a  few  days  before  I  had  heard 
Mr.  Darwin,  in  dwelling  upon  the  pleasure  a  visit 
paid  by  Mr.  Gladstone  had  given  him,  say,  “  And 
he  talked  just  as  if  he  had  been  an  ordinary 
person  like  one  of  ourselves.”  The  two  great 
men  were  alike  unconscious  of  their  greatness. 

It  was  an  unspeakable  benefit  to  Mr.  Gladstone 
that  his  love  of  letters  and  learning  enabled  him 
to  find  in  the  pursuit  of  knowledge  a  relief  from 
anxieties  and  a  solace  under  disappointments. 
Without  some  such  relief  his  fiery  and  restless 
spirit  would  have  worn  itself  out.  He  lived  two 
lives  —  the  life  of  the  statesman  and  the  life  of  the 
student,  and  passed  swiftly  from  the  one  to  the 
other,  dismissing  when  he  sat  down  to  his  books 
all  the  cares  of  politics.  But  he  led  a  third  life 
also,  the  secret  life  of  the  soul.  Religion  was  of 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  473 

all  things  that  which  had  the  strongest  hold  upon 
his  thoughts  and  feelings.  Nothing  but  his 
father’s  opposition  prevented  him  from  becom¬ 
ing  a  clergyman  when  he  quitted  the  Uni¬ 
versity.  Never  thereafter  did  he  cease  to  take 
the  warmest  interest  in  everything  that  affected 
the  Christian  Church.  He  lost  his  seat  for  Oxford 
University  by  the  votes  of  the  country  clergy, 
who  formed  the  bulk  of  the  constituency.  He  in¬ 
curred  the  displeasure  of  four-fifths  of  the  Angli¬ 
can  communion  by  disestablishing  the  Protestant 
Episcopal  Church  in  Ireland,  and  from  1868  to  the 
end  of  his  life  found  nearly  all  the  clerical  force 
of  the  English  establishment  arrayed  against  him, 
while  his  warmest  support  came  from  the  Non¬ 
conformists  of  England  and  the  Presbyterians  of 
Scotland.  Yet  nothing  affected  his  devotion  to 
the  Church  in  which  he  had  been  brought  up,  nor 
to  the  body  of  Anglo-Catholic  doctrine  he  had 
imbibed  as  an  undergraduate.  After  an  attack 
of  influenza  which  had  left  him  very  weak  in  the 
spring  of  1891,  he  endangered  his  life  by  attend¬ 
ing  a  meeting  on  behalf  of  the  Colonial  Bishoprics 
Fund,  for  which  he  had  spoken  fifty  years  before. 
His  theological  opinions  tinged  his  views  upon 
political  subjects.  They  filled  him  with  dislike  of 
the  legalisation  of  marriage  with  a  deceased  wife’s 
sister ;  they  made  him  a  vehement  opponent  of 
the  bill  which  established  the  English  Divorce 
Court  in  1857,  and  a  watchfully  hostile  critic  of 


474  Biographical  Studies 


all  divorce  legislation  in  America  afterwards. 
Some  of  his  friends  traced  to  the  same  cause  his 
less  than  adequate  appreciation  of  German  litera¬ 
ture  (though  he  admired  Goethe  and  Schiller)  and 
even  his  political  coldness  towards  Prussia  and 
afterwards  towards  the  German  Empire.  He 
could  not  forget  that  Germany  had  been  the 
fountain  of  rationalism,  while  German  Evangeli¬ 
cal  Protestantism  was  more  schismatic  and  further 
removed  from  the  mediaeval  Catholic  Church  than 
it  pleased  him  to  deem  the  Church  of  England 
to  be.  He  had  an  exceedingly  high  sense  of 
the  duty  of  purity  of  life  and  of  the  sanctity  of 
domestic  relations,  and  his  rigid  ideas  of  decorum 
inspired  so  much  awe  that  it  used  to  be  said  to  a 
person  who  had  told  an  anecdote  with  ever  so 
slight  a  tinge  of  impropriety,  “  How  many  thou¬ 
sands  of  pounds  would  you  take  to  tell  that  to 
Gladstone  ?  ”  When  living  in  the  country,  it  was 
his  practice  to  attend  daily  morning  service  in 
the  parish  church,  and  on  Sunday  to  read  in 
church  the  lessons  for  the  day;  and  he  rarely,  if 
ever,  transgressed  his  rule  against  Sunday  labour. 
Religious  feeling,  coupled  with  a  system  of  firm 
dogmatic  beliefs,  was  the  mainspring  of  his  life,  a 
guiding  light  in  perplexities,  a  source  of  strength 
in  adverse  fortune,  a  consolation  in  sorrow,  a 
beacon  of  hope  beyond  the  failures  and  disap¬ 
pointments  of  this  present  world.  He  did  not 
make  what  is  commonly  called  a  profession  of 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  475 

religion,  and  talked  little  about  it  in  general 
society,  although  always  ready  to  plunge  into  a 
magazine  controversy  when  Christianity  was  as¬ 
sailed.  But  those  who  knew  him  best  knew  that 
he  was  always  referring  current  questions  to, 
and  trying  his  own  conduct  by,  a  religious 
standard.  He  believed  in  the  efficacy  of  prayer, 
and  sought  through  prayer  for  strength  and  for 
direction  in  the  affairs  of  state.  He  was  a  re¬ 
markable  example  of  the  coexistence  together 
with  a  Christian  virtue  of  a  quality  which 
Catholic  theologians  treat  as  a  mortal  sin.  He 
was  an  exceedingly  proud  man,  yet  an  exceed¬ 
ingly  humble  Christian.  With  a  high  regard  for 
his  own  dignity  and  a  sensitiveness  to  any  impu¬ 
tation  on  his  honour,  he  was  deeply  conscious  of 
his  imperfections  in  the  eye  of  God,  realising  the 
weakness  and  sinfulness  of  human  nature  with 
a  mediaeval  intensity.  The  language  of  self¬ 
depreciation  he  was  wont  to  use,  sometimes 
deemed  unreal,  expressed  his  genuine  sense  of 
the  contrast  between  the  religious  ideal  he  set 
up  and  his  own  attainment.  And  the  tolerance 
which  he  extended  to  those  who  attacked  him 
or  who  had  (as  he  thought)  behaved  ill  in  public 
life  was  largely  due  to  this  pervading  sense  of  the 
frailty  of  human  character,  and  of  the  inextricable 
mixture  in  conduct  of  good  and  bad  motives. 
“  It  is  always  best  to  take  the  charitable  view,'’ 
he  once  observed  when  I  had  quoted  to  him  the 


47  6  Biographical  Studies 

saying  of  Dean  Church  that  Mark  Pattison  had 
painted  himself  too  black  in  his  autobiography 
—  “  always  best,”  adding,  with  grim  emphasis, 
“  especially  in  politics.” 

In  this  indulgent  view,  more  evident  in  his 
later  years,  and  the  more  remarkable  because 
his  expressions  were  often  too  vehement,  there 
was  nothing  of  the  cynical  “  man  of  the  world  ” 
acceptance  of  a  low  standard  as  the  only  possible 
standard,  for  his  moral  earnestness  was  as  fervent 
at  eighty-eight  as  it  had  been  at  thirty,  and  he 
retained  a  simplicity  and  an  unwillingness  to  sus¬ 
pect  sinister  motives,  singular  in  one  who  had 
seen  so  much.  Although  accessible  and  frank  in 
the  ordinary  converse  of  society,  he  was  in  reality 
a  reserved  man ;  not  shy,  stiff,  and  externally 
cold,  like  Peel,  nor  always  standing  on  a  pedestal 
of  dignity,  like  the  younger  Pitt,  but  (revealing 
his  deepest  thoughts  only  to  a  few  intimate 
friends,  and  treating  others  with  a  courteous 
kindliness  which,  though  it  put  them  at  their 
ease,  did  not  encourage  them  to  approach  nearer. 
Thus,  while  he  was  admired  by  the  mass  of  his 
followers,  and  beloved  by  the  small  inner  group 
of  family  friends,  the  majority  of  his  colleagues, 
official  subordinates,  and  political  or  ecclesiastical 
associates,  would  have  hesitated  to  give  him  any  of 
friendship’s  confidences.  Though  quick  to  mark 
and  acknowledge  good  service,  or  to  offer  to  a  junior 
an  opportunity  of  distinction,  many  deemed  him 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  477 

too  much  occupied  with  his  own  thoughts  to 
show  interest  in  his  disciples,  or  to  bestow  those 
counsels  which  a  young  man  prizes  from  his 
chief.  But  for  the  warmth  of  his  devotion  to  a 
few  early  friends  and  the  reverence  he  paid  to 
their  memory,  a  reverence  touchingly  shown  in 
the  article  on  Arthur  Hallam  which  he  published 
near  the  end  of  his  own  life,  sixty-five  years  after 
Hallam’s  death,  there  might  have  seemed  to  be 
a  measure  of  truth  in  the  judgment  that  he  cared 
less  for  men  than  for  ideas  and  causes.  Those, 
however,  who  marked  the  pang  which  the  de¬ 
parture  to  the  Roman  Church  of  his  friend  Hope 
Scott  caused  him,  those  who  in  later  days  noted 
the  enthusiasm  with  which  he  would  speak  of 
Lord  Althorp,  his  opponent,  and  of  Lord  Aber¬ 
deen,  his  chief,  dwelling  upon  the  truthfulness  and 
uprightness  of  the  former  and  the  amiability  of 
the  latter,  knew  that  the  impression  of  detach¬ 
ment  he  gave  wronged  the  sensibility  of  his  own 
heart.  Of  how  few  who  have  lived  for  more  than 
sixty  years  in  the  full  sight  of  their  countrymen, 
and  have  been  as  party  leaders  exposed  to  angry 
and  sometimes  spiteful  criticism,  can  it  be  said 
that  there  stands  on  record  against  them  no 
malignant  word  and  no  vindictive  act !  This 
was  due  not  perhaps  entirely  to  natural  sweet¬ 
ness  of  disposition,  but  rather  to  self-control 
and  to  a  certain  largeness  of  soul  which  would 
not  condescend  to  anything  mean  or  petty. 


47  8  Biographical  Studies 

Pride,  though  it  may  be  a  sin,  is  to  most  of  us  a 
useful,  to  some  an  indispensable,  buttress  of  virtue. 
Nor  should  it  be  forgotten  that  the  perfectly  happy 
life  which  he  led  at  home,  cared  for  in  everything 
by  a  devoted  wife,  kept  far  from  him  those  domes¬ 
tic  troubles  which  have  soured  the  temper  and 
embittered  the  judgments  of  not  a  few  famous 
men.  Reviewing  his  whole  career,  and  sum¬ 
ming  up  the  concurrent  impressions  and  recol¬ 
lections  of  those  who  knew  him  best,  this  dig¬ 
nity  is  the  feature  which  dwells  most  in  the 
mind,  as  the  outline  of  some  majestic  Alp  thrills 
one  from  afar  when  all  the  lesser  beauties  of 
glen  and  wood,  of  crag  and  glacier,  have  faded  in 
the  distance.  As  elevation  was  the  note  of  his 
oratory,  so  was  magnanimity  the  note  of  his 
character. 

The  Greek  maxim  that  no  one  can  be  called 
happy  till  his  life  is  closed  must,  in  the  case  of 
statesmen,  be  extended  to  warn  us  from  the 
attempt  to  fix  a  man’s  place  in  history  till  a 
generation  has  arisen  to  whom  he  is  a  mere 
name,  not  a  familiar  figure  to  be  loved  or  hated. 
Few  reputations  made  in  politics  so  far  retain 
their  lustre  that  curiosity  continues  to  play  round 
the  person  when  those  who  can  remember  him 
living  have  departed.  Dante  has  in  immortal 
stanzas  contrasted  the  fame  of  Provenzano  Salvani 
that  sounded  through  all  Tuscany  while  he  lived 
with  the  faint  whispers  of  his  name  heard  in  his 


William  Ewart  Gladstone  479 

own  Siena  forty  years  after  his  death.1  So  out  of 
all  the  men  who  have  held  a  foremost  place 
in  English  public  life  in  the  nineteenth  century 
there  are  but  six  or  seven — Pitt,  Fox,  Welling¬ 
ton,  Peel,  Disraeli,  possibly  Canning  or  O’Connell 
or  Melbourne  —  whose  names  are  to-day  upon 
our  lips.  The  great  poet  or  the  great  artist  lives 
as  long  as  his  books  or  his  pictures ;  the  states¬ 
man,  like  the  singer  or  the  actor,  begins  to  be 
forgotten  so  soon  as  his  voice  is  still,  unless 
he  has  so  dominated  the  men  of  his  own  time, 
and  made  himself  a  part  of  his  country’s  history, 
that  his  personal  character  is  indissolubly  linked 
to  the  events  the  course  of  which  he  helped  to 
determine.  Tried  by  this  test,  Mr.  Gladstone’s 
fame  seems  destined  to  endure.  His  eloquence 
will  soon  become  merely  a  tradition,  for  his 
printed  speeches  do  not  preserve  its  charm.  If 
some  of  his  books  continue  to  be  read,  it  will 
be  rather  because  they  are  his  than  in  respect  of 
any  permanent  contribution  they  have  made  to 
knowledge.  The  wisdom  of  his  policy,  foreign 
and  domestic,  will  have  to  be  judged,  not  only 
by  the  consequences  we  see,  but  also  by  other 
consequences  still  hidden  in  the  future.  Yet 
among  his  acts  there  are  some  with  which 
history  cannot  fail  to  concern  herself,  and  which 
will  keep  fresh  the  memory  of  their  author’s 
energy  and  courage.  Whoever  follows  the  an- 


1  Purgat.,  xi.  100126. 


480  Biographical  Studies 

nals  of  England  during  the  memorable  years 
from  1843  to  1894  will  meet  his  name  on  almost 
every  page,  will  feel  how  great  must  have  been 
the  force  of  an  intellect  that  could  so  interpene¬ 
trate  the  story  of  its  time,  and  will  seek  to 
know  something  of  the  dauntless  figure  that 
rose  always  conspicuous  above  the  struggling 
throng. 

There  is  a  passage  in  the  Odyssey  where  the 
seer  Theoclymenus  says,  in  describing  a  vision 
of  death :  “  The  sun  has  perished  out  of  heaven.” 
To  Englishmen,  Mr.  Gladstone  had  been  like 
a  sun  which,  sinking  slowly,  had  grown  larger 
as  he  sank,  and  filled  the  sky  with  radiance 
even  while  he  trembled  on  the  verge  of  the 
horizon.  There  were  men  of  ability  and  men  of 
renown,  but  there  was  no  one  comparable  to  him 
in  fame  and  power  and  honour.  When  he  de¬ 
parted  the  light  seemed  to  have  died  out  of 
the  sky. 


INDEX 


Acton,  John  Edward  Emerich  Dal- 
berg-,  Lord  — 
career  of,  382-84 
characteristics  of,  399 
critical  taste  of,  390 
family  of,  382 

history,  view  of,  391-92;  view  of 
study  of,  394-95 
learning  of,  386-89,  392 
liberty,  history  of,  projected  by,  395- 
96 

libraries  of,  388-89  and  note 
political  opinions  of,  384 
style  of,  396-97 
thoroughness  of,  390,  393-95 
University  work  of,  397-98 
writings  of,  395 

American  Civil  War,  55,  57,  90  and 
note.  See  also  United  States 
Arnold,  Dr.,  343,  346 
Austen,  Jane,  127 

Beaconsfield,  Benjamin  Disraeli, 
Lord  — 

Cairns  valued  by,  186-87 
career  of,  3-16 
characteristics  of — 
ambition,  21-22,  26,  30-31 
bonhomie,  32,  34 
courage,  n,  25-26,  65 
cynicism,  30,  40-41 
debating  power,  47 
intellectual  congruity,  35-38,  42. 
loyalty,  33 

self-confidence,  21,  26,  50,  65, 
224 

tactical  adroitness,  48-50 
tenacity,  11,  15,  23-24,  60,  65 
Eastern  policy  of,  140,  275-76,  300, 
356 

education  of,  39 
epigrammatic  phrases  of,  41-42 


Beaconsfield,  Lord  — 
estimates  regarding,  1-2;  foreign, 
54.  58 
family  of,  3 

Gladstone  compared  with,  418,  429, 
465;  contrasted  with,  422;  Glad¬ 
stone's  attitude  towards,  455-56 
influence  of,  66-68 
literary  works  of,  4-5,  18-19,  29.  3I_ 
33.  35.  4i.  43-45.  52  note  1  quoted, 
21  note,  25  note,  41,  50  note,  55 
Lowe  and,  34,  302 
Northcote  appreciated  by,  21,  218 
political  views  of,  6-8  ;  foreign  policy 
of  ( see  also  above,  Eastern  policy), 
15.  56,  59.  67 
Stanley  and,  81 

suffrage  extension,  policy  of,  305-306, 
309-10,  442 

otherwise  mentioned,  107,  171,  220 
Bentinck,  Lord  George,  9 
Bishops  — 

change  in  type  of,  196-98 
House  of  Lords,  presence  in,  112 
industry  of,  199 
influence  of,  100-101,  103 
Bismarck,  Prince,  54 
Black,  J.  Sutherland,  311  note 
Bowen,  Edward  Ernest  — 
biography  of,  343  note 
career  of,  345-46 
characteristics  of,  360-62 
death  of,  355 

games,  attitude  towards,  351-52 
influence  of,  350;  views  regarding, 

353- 54 

military  history,  fondness  for,  357-58 
political  interests  of,  355-57 
school  songs  of,  343  note,  359-60 
teaching  methods  of,  346-47,  349-50, 

354- 55 

training  of  teachers,  views  on,  348 


482  Biographical  Studies 


Bowen,  Edward  Ernest  — 
travel,  fondness  for,  358 
walking  tours  of,  355 
Bowen,  Lord,  345,  359 
Bradlaugh,  Mr.,  437 
Bright,  John,  30,  98,  304,  428-29,  443, 
455  note 

Brooke,  Rev.  Stopford,  quoted,  135-37 
Brooks,  Dr.  Phillips,  209,  381 
Brougham,  Lord,  64,  428 
Browning,  Robert,  39,  126 
Burke,  Edmund,  4x0,  427-28,  440 
Burney,  Miss,  127 

Cairns,  Hugh  M'Calmont,  Earl  — 
American  Civil  War,  attitude 
towards,  57 
career  of,  184-86 
characteristics  of,  184,  188-91 
Disraeli  compared  with,  47 
Gladstone  compared  with,  429 
Jessel  compared  with,  180,  193 
judicial  gifts  of,  192-93 
legal  manner  of,  191-92 
Mellish  and,  176-78 
parliamentary  reform  opposed  by, 
3°7 

political  partisanship  of,  187,  194-95 
religious  views  and  interests  of, 
185-86,  193-94 
Cambridge  — 

Jewish  scholar  at,  319  note 
Sidgwick  at,  327  seq. 

Smith,  W.  R.,  at,  319 
Canterbury,  importance  of  See  of,  101- 
105 ;  qualifications  of  archbishops 
of,  105-107 

Carlyle,  Thomas,  40,  87,  92,  126,  277, 
461 

Celtic  temperament,  403,  405 
Chancery  Bar,  170;  famous  trio  at, 
191 

Chancery  Courts,  181-82 
Charity  Organisation  Society,  133 
Church,  Dean,  251-52 
Church  — 

Anglican  — 

disestablishment  of,  114-15,  141 
possibilities  before,  209-10 
Stanley’s  view  of,  78-79 
Tractarian  movement  in,  252,  264 
note,  406 

Roman  Catholic  — 
adaptability  of,  259 
Infallibilist  claims  of,  256,  385 


Church  — 

Roman  Catholic  — 
modem  research,  attitude  towards, 
317 

Clark,  George  T.,  quoted,  266-67 
Clough,  Miss  A.  J.,  329 
Clough,  Arthur  Hugh,  338 
Cobden,  Mr.,  quoted,  429-30 
Collins,  Wilkie,  116 
Copleston,  Dr.  (Bishop  of  LlandafF), 
197 

Creighton,  Bishop,  289,  387 

Dalgaims,  251 
Dante,  468-69,  471 
Darwin,  Charles,  457,  471-72 
De  la  Democratic,  Scherer’s,  cited, 
309  note 
Delane,  Mr.,  422 

Democracy  and  the  Organisation  of 
Political  Parties,  Ostrogorski’s, 
cited,  309  note 

Denison,  Archdeacon,  133,  271  note 
Derby,  Lord,  10,  12,  28,  47,  57,  198, 
429,  470 

Dickens,  Charles,  123,  127 
Disraeli.  See  Beaconsfield 
Dissenters.  See  Nonconformists 
Dollinger,  Dr.  von,  383,  385,  392 
Dupanloup,  Archbishop,  209,  385 

Eastern  question  (1876),  140,  275-76, 
300,  356.  419 

Editors,  types  of,  363-64 ;  temptations 
of,  370,  380-81 
Eliot,  George,  124,  328 
Equity  Courts,  170,  173 
Essays  and  Reviews,  113,  317 
Essays  on  Reform,  cited,  307  and  note 
Evening  Post,  The,  365,  374-76 

Forster,  W.  E.,  234,  239  and  note 
Fox,  Charles  James,  428-29,  435 
France,  novelists  of,  129 
Franchise  extension.  See  Suffrage 
Fraser,  James,  Bishop  of  Manchester — 
biographies  of,  196  note 
career  of,  196,  200-201 
characteristics  of,  204-205 
energy  of,  202 
influence  of,  206 

new  Episcopal  type  created  by,  196- 
210 

personality  of,  203-204 
popularity  of,  202,  206 


Index 


+83 


Fraser,  James,  Bishop  of  Manchester  — 
ritualist  illegalities,  attitude  towards, 
208 

science,  attitude  towards,  207 
views  of,  206-207 
Freeman,  Edward  Augustus  — 
biography  of,  262  note 
career  of,  262-63 
friendships  of,  290 
Green  influenced  by,  137 
historical  work,  merits  of,  276-84; 

style  of,  286-87 
humour  of,  287 
interests  of,  264-67,  271-72 
kindliness  of,  278,  291 
literary  preferences  of,  269-70 
methodical  ways  of,  285 
military  history,  fondness  for,  357 
Oxford  work  of,  287-89 
political  views  of,  272-75 
simplicity  and  directness  of,  270-71, 
275 

Trollope  and,  120,  271  and  note 
works  of,  267,  284-86,  291-92 
Froude,  J.  A.,  271  note 

Gardiner,  S.  R.,  357 ;  quoted,  274 
Gibbon,  133,  169,  281,  284 
Gladstone,  William  Ewart  — 

Acton,  Lord,  relations  with,  383, 
399 

Alabama  claims,  action  regarding, 
444,  446,  449,  451 

American  Civil  War,  attitude  tow¬ 
ards,  57 
career  of,  412 
characteristics  of — 
breadth  and  keenness  of  interests, 
400,  413,  459 

caution,  409,  414,  419,  447,  453 
complexity  of  nature,  400,  409-10, 
412 

conservatism,  401,  439 
constructive  power,  439-41 
conversational  powers,  461 
courage,  447  and  note,  451  note 
courtesy,  423  and  note,  455-56, 
461 

dignity,  457 

emotional  excitability,  405,  410-11, 

433-34 
humour,  460 

impulsiveness,  401,  405,  421,  447 
independence,  418-19,  450 
ingenuity,  404,  416-17,  430-31,  466 


Gladstone,  William  Ewart  — 
characteristics  of — 
insight  into  character,  453 
intensity,  402,  405,  426,  435,  450, 
453,  460,  462 
loyalty,  455 

magnanimity,  457,  477 
memory,  404,  424,  459;  for  faces, 
423 

open-mindedness,  416,  452,  454 
oratory,  411,  426-39,  463 
over-subtlety,  407,  432,  448,  452 
patriotism,  450-51 
pride,  416,  420,  423,  452,  455,  474, 
477 

religious  disposition,  472-75 ; 

views,  401,  406-407 
reserve :  political,  409,  414-15, 
419,  452;  personal,  424,  475-76 
Scottish  temperament,  403-405 
self-confidence,  224 
simplicity,  453,  458,  461,  475 
sincerity,  401 
temper,  455-56 
tranquillity,  462 
voice,  430,  436-38 
Disraeli  and,  11,  33,  35 
estimates  of,  411, 417, 448 ;  continen¬ 
tal,  444 
family  of,  403 

foreign  affairs,  attitude  towards,  443- 
46,  458 

Freeman's  appointment  by,  263 
High  Church  appointments  of,  198 
home  life  of,  462,  474,  477 
Homeric  studies  and  views  of,  401, 
465-68 

Home  Rule  Bill  of  (1886),  272 
hostility  to,  304 

literary  activities  of,  401,  458,  462- 
68 

Lowe  compared  with,  293,  299,  429, 
435 ;  Lowe’s  antagonism  to,  295 ; 
Lowe  in  Cabinet  of,  299 
mistakes  of,  449 
Northcote  and,  212,  216 
Oxford  training  of,  406-408 
parliamentary  abililities  of,  420-21, 
424-26 

Parnell's  resentment  against,  239-40, 
247 

Peel’s  influence  on,  10,  409,  452 
poetry,  attitude  towards,  471 
quoted,  56 

Reform  Bill  of,  13,  442 


484  Biographical  Studies 


Gladstone,  William  Ewart  — 
scholarship  of,  468 
science,  attitude  towards,  407-408, 
470 

suffrage  qualifications,  proposed  re¬ 
duction  of,  308  note 
theological  views  of,  tingeing  politi¬ 
cal,  473 

otherwise  mentioned,  67,  113,  179, 
187,  221,  260 

Godkin,  Edwin  Lawrence  — 
career  of,  365-66 
courage  of,  370-71 
geniality  of,  376 
humour  of,  368-73 
independence  of,  364,  369,  381 
influence  of,  378-80 
sincerity  of,  367,  373,  380 
style  of,  367-68,  373 
Tammany,  attitude  towards,  374  and 
jote 

views  of,  366-67,  370,  374-76 
Green,  John  Richard  — 
biography  of,  131  note 
career  of,  131-34 
conversation  of,  165-66 
eloquence  of,  166 

gifts  and  qualities  of,  146, 151-52, 154, 
160-62,  164-67 
ill-health  of,  138,  141-46 
interests  of,  151,  154-57 
letters  of,  131  note,  152-53 
literary  work  of  —  Saturday  Review 
articles,  133,  135-37,  153;  histori¬ 
cal,  138-39,  142-45,  155,  158-60, 
163-64;  characteristics  of,  139-40, 
I5°.  iS2-S3.  157-65.  167-69 
military  history,  fondness  for,  357 
political  activity  of,  140-41 
views  of,  134 

Green,  Professor  Thomas  Hill  — 
career  of,  85 
characteristics  of,  86-91 
civic  activities  of,  98 
influence  of,  95-97,  99 
literary  works  of,  92-94,  98 
political  keenness  of,  95,  97 
views  of,  93, 97,  335 
otherwise  mentioned,  265,  268,  278 

Hardy,  Gathome,  213 
Hardy,  Thomas,  116 
Healy,  T.  M.,  443 
Henry  VIII.,  271  note 
Herodotus,  149-51 


Historians  — 

qualifications  of,  146-48,  156,  277 
two  classes  of,  149 
History,  Freeman's  view  of,  268,  274 
Hodgkin,  Dr.  Thomas,  357 
Holker,  Sir  John,  453  note 
House  of  Commons  — 
character  of,  48 
erroneous  sketches  of,  121 
lawyers  in,  172 
leadership  of,  217,  424 
occasional  detachment  of,  from  pop¬ 
ular  sentiment,  51 
power  of,  declining,  308-309 
rhetoric  unpopular  with,  296 
Huxley,  207 

Iddesleigh.  See  Northcote 
Ireland  — 

Anglo-Irish  Protestants,  229-30 
Church  disestablishment  in,  113,  187, 
273,  407,  419,  442,  449  and  note 
Disraeli's  attitude  towards,  56-57,  67 
Green,  J.  R.,  views  of,  regarding, 
141 

Home  Rule,  views  regarding,  of 
Acton,  384;  Bowen,  356;  Bright, 
455  note;  Freeman,  272;  Glad¬ 
stone,  272,  414,  447  ;  Godkin,  375 
Land  Bill  of  1881,  425,  442-43 

James,  Henry,  129 
Jessel,  Sir  George  — 

Cairns  compared  with,  180,  193 
career  of,  17 1 

judicial  methods  of,  174-75,  179-81, 
194 

mental  powers  of,  173,  181-82 
parliamentary  manner  of,  172 
quickness  of,  173,  176,  183,  193 
Jews  — 

bigotry  towards,  183 
Cambridge  scholar,  anecdote  of,  319 
note 

concentration,  power  of,  possessed 
by,  23  and  note 
conservatism  of,  25  note 
detachment  of,  19-20 
distinctions  gained  by,  171 
practicality  of,  182 
satirical  powers  of,  45 
Jowett,  1 13,  150 

Kelvin,  Lord,  184 
Kipling,  Rudyard,  129 


Index 


485 


Lawrence,  Lord,  184 
Lightfoot,  Bishop,  199-200,  209,  290 
Louis  Napoleon,  55,  64,  98 
Lowe,  Robert  — 
biography  of,  293  note 
Cairns  compared  with,  188 
career  of,  293-95,  299-300 
characteristics  of,  301-304 
Disraeli  and,  34,  302 
eclipse  of  fame  of,  293,  300 
educational  work  of,  294-95,  3°4~ 
305 

Gladstone  compared  with,  293,  299, 
429,  435;  antagonism  to  Glad¬ 
stone,  295 ;  in  Gladstone's  Cabinet, 
299 

Oxford,  at,  301  note  2 
rhetorical  power  of,  296-97 
shortsightedness  of,  300-301 
Utilitarianism  of,  304 
Lyndhurst,  Lord,  29 

Macaulay,  139,  169,  270,  274,  281,  427, 
428  and  note  2 
Macdonald,  Sir  John  A.,  422 
Maclennan,  John  F.,  320 
Magee,  Archbishop,  112,  199,  429 
Manning,  Cardinal  Henry  Edward  — 
biography  of,  260-61 
career  of,  250-51 
characteristics  of,  251-54,  261 
conversions  effected  by,  255 
Infallibilist  cause,  work  for,  256 
interests  and  sympathies  of,  257- 
61 

speeches  of,  255 
Maurice,  F.  D.,  134,  408 
Mellish,  Lord  Justice,  176-79 
Meredith,  George,  116,  122 
Mill,  John  Stuart,  61,  78  note,  93, 
3°4 

Monk,  Bishop,  197 
Mugwumps,  375  and  note 

Napoleon  Bonaparte,  238 
Napoleon,  Louis,  55,  64,  98 
Nation,  The,  365,  368,  371-73,  378 
Newman,  Cardinal,  251-52,  428  note  f, 
467 

Newnham  College,  Cambridge,  329- 
3° 

Nonconformists  — 

Disraeli's  dislike  of,  8,  52 
Education  Act  (1870)  resented  by, 

15 


Nonconformists  — 

Fraser's  attitude  towards,  202,  206- 
208  note 

Gladstone  trusted  by,  401 
Green's  dislike  of,  134 
Northcote,  Sir  Stafford  (Lord  Iddes- 
leigh)  — 

biography  of,  21 1  note 
career  of,  212-13 

characteristics  of,  213,  222-23,  225“ 
26 

Gladstone  compared  with,  435 
parliamentary  abilities  of,  214-16, 
2x8 

Novels,  types  of,  122 

O’Connell,  Daniel,  6,  8,  248 
Oliphant,  Mrs.,  116 
Oratory  — 

elevation  in,  433 
reputation  for,  nature  of,  427 
Oxford  — 

Green,  T.  H.,  on  municipal  council 
of,  98-99 

Thackeray's  candidature  for,  120 
Oxford  University  — 

Tractarian  movement  in,  252,  264 
note,  406 

training  at,  characteristics  of,  408, 
467 

Palmer,  Roundell  (Lord  Selborne), 
176,  191-92,  294 

Palmerston,  Lord,  13,  28, 49,  57, 98,  294 
Parliament.  See  House  of  Commons 
Parnell,  Charles  Stewart  — 
biography  of,  227  note 
career  of,  228-29 
family  of,  227 

leadership,  aptness  for,  248 
moral  courage  of,  239 
parliamentary  tactics  of,  218-19, 
244  ;  knowledge  of  procedure, 

242-43 

passion  and  self-control  of,  240 
Phoenix  Park  murders,  demeanour 
after,  236,  238 

Pigott  affair,  attitude  towards,  239 
practicality  of,  230-33 
pride  of,  233,  235-38 
self-confidence  of,  224,  236,  238 
speeches  of,  241-42 
unscrupulousness  of,  237-38 
unsympathetic  manner  of,  190 
views  of,  245-46 


486  Biographical  Studies 


Peel,  Sir  Robert  — 
caution  of,  408-409,  452 
death  of,  10 

Disraeli's  conduct  towards,  28  and 
note ;  his  view  of,  55 
financial  policy  of,  441-42 
Gladstone  compared  with,  411,  439, 
455.  475 

separation  of,  from  Conservatives,  9, 
61 

speeches  of,  428 

Pitt,  William,  429,  435,  439,  442,  476 
Popular  Government,  Sir  H.  Maine’s, 
cited,  309  note 

Psychical  Research  Society,  331-32 
Pusey,  Dr.,  cited,  80 

Rhodes,  Cecil,  246 
Rolt,  Lord  Justice,  191-92 
Roman  Catholic  Church.  See  under 
Church 

Russell,  Lord,  13,  28,  57,  295 

Salisbury,  Lord,  186,  247,  295,  456 
Saturday  Review  — 

Bowen's  contributions  to,  360 
Freeman's  contributions  to,  285 ;  dis¬ 
sociation  from,  275 
Green's  contributions  to,  133, 135-37, 
153 

Schoolmasters,  types  of,  343,  346 
Schools  Inquiry  Commission,  200-201 
Scott,  Sir  Walter,  123,  125 
Scottish  temperament  and  character¬ 
istics,  315,  403-405 

Selborne,  Lord.  See  Palmer,  Roundell 
Sherbrooke,  Viscount.  See  Lowe, 
Robert 

Sidgwick,  Henry  — 
career  of,  327-29 
characteristics  of,  338-42 
impartiality  of,  334 
literary  preferences  of,  338 
psychical  research,  interest  in,  331- 
332 

views  of,  philosophical  and  political, 
335-37 

women's  education  promoted  by, 
329 

works  of,  332-34,  338 
Skene,  Mr.,  cited,  158 
Smith,  Professor  Goldwin,  76,  281 
Smith,  R.  Bosworth,  quoted,  349-50 
Smith,  Professor  Robertson  — 

Acton,  Lord,  and,  387 


Smith,  Professor  Robertson  — 
career  of,  311-12,  315,  318-20 
characteristics  of,  323-25 
ecclesiastical  trial  of,  313-16 
Encyclopedia  Britannica,  work  on, 
312-14 

versatility  of,  322 

works  of,  320-21 ;  characteristics  of, 
321 

Stanley,  Very  Rev.  Arthur  Penrhyn — 
career  of,  70 

characteristics  of,  71,  73,  77,  82- 
84 

debating  power  of,  77 
Disraeli  and,  81 
family  of,  69-70 
Green  influenced  by,  132,  137 
literary  work  of,  71-74 
politics  of,  78 
sermons  of,  76-77 
theological  position  of,  80-81 
Tait,  attitude  towards,  113 
otherwise  mentioned,  164-65,  205- 
206 

Statesmanship,  necessary  qualifications 
for,  46 

Stevenson,  R.  L.,  129 
Stubbs,  Bishop,  138,  160,  289-90,  453 
note 

Suffrage  extension  — 

Disraeli's  view  of,  52,  57-58,  67-68, 
310 

Lowe's  opposition  to,  295-98,  305- 
306 

results  of,  306-309 

Tait,  Archibald  Campbell,  Archbishop 
of  Canterbury — 
biography  of,  cited,  100  note 
career  of,  107 

characteristics  of,  108-12,  209 
Green  appointed  librarian  by,  133- 
34 

influence  of,  x  10-12 
Irish  Church  Disestablishment  Bill, 
attitude  towards,  187 
policy  of,  112,  114 
views  of,  no 

Temple,  Archbishop,  113  and  note, 
199 

Tennyson,  39,  459 
Thackeray,  W.  M.,  35,  120,  123-25 
Thirlwall,  Bishop,  112 
Thucydides,  149-50 
Tone,  Wolfe,  229,  248 


Index 


+87 


Tory  party  — 

nature  ot,  18;  (1848-1865),  do- 

da 

suffrage  extension  profitable  to,  52, 
57-58,  67,  310 

Tractarian  movement,  252,  264  note, 
406 

Trollope,  Anthony  — 
biographies  of,  cited,  116  note 
Freeman  and,  120,  271  and  note 
literary  position  of,  nd-18 
personality  of,  118,  126 
political  activity  of,  120 
travels  of,  121-22 

works  of,  117-20, 128;  characteristics 
of,  122-30 


United  States  — 

Acton’s  knowledge  of  history  of,  387 
Freeman's  visit  to,  268 
journalism  in,  379 
Presbyterianism  in,  317 
religion  and  politics  dissociated  in,  100 
Trollope's  account  of,  122 
University  influence  in,  378 

Westbury,  Lord,  303 
Whiggism,  6,  8,  63,  298,  469 
Wilberforce,  Bishop  Samuel,  m-12, 
198,  254,  429 

Women,  education  of,  329-31 
Wordsworth,  301 

Wright,  William,  319  and  note,  320 


DEMOCRACY 

AND  THE 

Organization  of  Political  Parties 

By  M.  OSTROGORSKI 

Translated  from  the  French  by  Frederick  Clarke,  M.A.,  formerly  Taylorian 
Scholar  in  the  University  of  Oxford 

With  a  Preface  by  the  Right  Hon.  James  Bryce,  M.P. 

In  Two  Volumes.  Cloth  8vo.  $6.00,  net 


“  Mr.  Ostrogorski’s  contribution,  especially  in  its  analysis  and  exposition  of  politi¬ 
cal  phenomena,  is  a  great  one.  His  work  is  a  thesaurus  of  fact  and  philosophy 
that  should  come  into  the  hands  of  every  serious  student  of  politics  in  these  two 
democracies  where  have  been  set  up  the  stupendous  mechanisms  which  convert 
raw  opinion  into  votes  that  often  so  inaccurately  and  wastefully  represent  it,  which 
transmute  votes  into  legislation  that  so  seldom  satisfies  the  voter,  and  which  finally 
enact  the  legislation  into  life  that  seems  to  mock  the  very  purpose  that  gave  it 
being.”  —  J.  H.  F.,  in  the  Atlantic  Monthly. 

“  He  goes  through  the  history  of  American  political  conventions  with  a  search¬ 
ing  eye,  and  he  describes  in  detail,  with  a  mordant  but  infectious  humor,  the  pro¬ 
ceedings  of  a  typical  presidential  convention  —  its  plottings  behind  the  scene,  its 
machine-made  but  contagious  enthusiasm,  its  straddling  platforms,  and  its  bombastic 
nominating  speeches.  Extracts  from  genuine  and  recognizable  speeches  are  given. 
.  .  .  His  conclusions  are  .  .  .  arrived  at  after  an  investigation  which  has  evidently 
been  comprehensive,  well-intentioned,  and  directed  by  a  searching  and  philosophic 
intelligence.  The  book  is  monumental  in  its  character,  and  yet  it  is  written  in  a 
clear,  graphic,  philosophic,  and  often  witty  vein.  It  is  highly  informing  and  highly 
suggestive."  —  New  York  Mail  and  Express. 

“  Mr.  Bryce,  in  his  preface,  calls  to  mind  his  own  difficulty  in  1883  in  getting 
sufficient  information  respecting  the  working  of  the  American  ‘  machine,’  and  M. 
Ostrogorski  complains  of  a  similar  handicap  to-day.  His  diligence,  however,  has 
enabled  him  to  bring  together  and  systematize  a  body  of  information  which  will 
make  these  volumes  a  standard  authority  on  the  subject,  whatever  may  be  thought 
of  his  own  suggested  remedies  for  the  political  diseases  which  he  has  here  diag¬ 
nosed.  ...  It  is  not  too  much  to  say  that  by  this  book  the  internal  English  history 
of  the  last  thirty  years  is  for  the  first  time  made  intelligible.  The  revelations  here 
given  of  the  hold  which  the  caucus  has  gained  upon  English  political  life  will  sur¬ 
prise  readers  in  every  country  which  this  book  reaches."  —  New  York  Tunes. 


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The  American  Commonwealth. 

BY  THE 

Right  Hon.  JAMES  BRYCE,  D.C.L., 

Author  of  “Thb  Holy  Roman  Empire";  M.P.  for  Aberdeen. 

Third  Edition,  Revised  Throughout.  In  Two  Volumes. 


Uiire  i2mo.  $4.00,  net.  Abridged  Edition,  in  one  volume,  $1.75,  net. 


PRESS  NOTICES. 

“  His  work  rises  at  once  to  an  eminent  place  among  studies  of  great  nations  and 
their  institutions.  It  is,  so  far  as  America  goes,  a  work  unique  in  scope,  spirit,  and 
knowledge.  There  is  nothing  like  it  anywhere  extant,  nothing  that  approaches 
it.  .  .  .  Without  exaggeration  it  may  be  called  the  most  considerable  and  gratify¬ 
ing  tribute  that  has  yet  been  bestowed  upon  us  by  an  Englishman,  and  perhaps  by 
even  England  herself.  .  .  .  One  despairs  in  an  attempt  to  give,  in  a  single  news¬ 
paper  article,  an  adequate  account  of  a  work  so  infused  with  knowledge  and  spark¬ 
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"  Written  with  full  knowledge  by  a  distinguished  Englishman  to  dispel  vulgar 
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nation  to  another.” —  The  Times,  London. 

“  This  work  will  be  invaluable  .  .  .  to  the  American  citizen  who  wishes  something 
more  than  a  superficial  knowledge  of  the  political  system  under  which  he  lives  and 
of  the  differences  between  it  and  those  of  other  countries.  .  .  .  The  fact  is  that  no 
writer  has  ever  attempted  to  present  so  comprehensive  an  account  of  our  political 
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house  of  political  information  regarding  America  such  as  no  other  writer,  American 
or  other,  has  ever  provided  in  one  work.  ...  It  will  remain  a  standard  even  for 
the  American  reader."  —  New  York  Tribune. 

“  The  book  should  be  known  by  every  American  who  wishes  to  understand  his 
own  country.  ...  It  is  by  far  the  most  able,  sincere,  candid,  and  impartial  study 
of  the  condition  of  the  United  States  that  has  ever  appeared  since  De  Tocqueville's 
memorable  work."  —  Boston  Beacon. 

THE  AMERICAN  COMMONWEALTH.  Abridged  Edition.  For  the  use 
of  Colleges  and  High  Schools.  Being  an  Introduction  to  the  Study  of 
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An  Outline  of  Political  History,  1 492- 1 87 1 

By  GOLDWIN  SMITH,  D.C.L. 

Third  Edition.  With  Map.  Crown  8vo.  $2.00 


"  His  survey  of  events  is  luminous,  his  estimate  of  character  is  singularly  keen 
and  just,  and  his  style  is  at  once  incisive,  dignified,  and  scholarly.  ...  No  one 
who  takes  up  Mr.  Goldwin  Smith's  volume  will  readily  lay  it  down  before  he  has 
finished  it;  no  one  will  lay  it  down  without  acknowledging  the  rare  gifts  of  the 
writer.”  —  The  Times. 

“  Is  a  literary  masterpiece,  as  readable  as  a  novel,  remarkable  for  its  compres¬ 
sion  without  dryness,  and  its  brilliancy  without  any  rhetorical  effort  or  display. 
What  American  could,  with  so  broad  a  grasp  and  so  perfect  a  style,  have  rehearsed 
our  political  history  from  Columbus  to  Grant  in  three  hundred  duodecimo  pages 
of  open  type,  or  would  have  manifested  greater  candor  in  his  judgment  of  men  and 
events  in  a  period  of  four  centuries  ?  It  is  enough  to  say  that  no  one  before  Mr. 
Smith  has  attempted  the  feat,  and  that  he  has  the  field  to  himself.” —  The  Nation. 

"It  is  a  marvel  of  condensation  and  lucidity.  In  no  other  book  is  the  same 
field  covered  so  succinctly  and  so  well.  Of  the  five  chapters,  the  first  deals  with 
the  Colonial  epoch,  the  second  with  the  Revolutionary  period,  the  third  and  fourth 
review  the  history  of  the  Federal  Government  to  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War, 
and  the  fifth  depicts  the  era  of  rupture  and  reconstruction.  We  have  marked  cer¬ 
tain  passages  for  extract ;  but  the  truth  is  that  almost  every  page  is  enriched  with 
striking  comments  that  cause  the  reader  to  carefully  reconsider,  if  not  to  change, 
his  views  of  historical  persons  and  events.”  —  New  York  Sun. 

"  To  say  that  nothing  comparable  with  this  most  instructive  and  enchanting 
volume  has  hitherto  come  from  Professor  Smith’s  pen,  would,  perhaps,  be  only 
anticipating  the  judgment  of  its  readers."  —  Toronto  Mail. 

"  As  a  whole,  has  a  comprehensiveness  of  view  and  a  ready  grasp  of  leading 
tendencies  that  should  make  it  particularly  useful  to  the  busy  man  who  desires  a 
rapid  survey  of  American  political  history.  By  deliberately  neglecting  details, 
Professor  Smith  has  been  able  to  fasten  the  attention  upon  salient  points,  and  to 
concentrate  interest  around  the  career  of  the  great  leaders  in  our  political  develop¬ 
ment."  —  Boston  Beacon. 

“  No  pen  has  ever  been  more  eloquent  than  his  in  setting  forth  the  merits  of 
Washington,  and  Hamilton,  and  Webster,  and  Lincoln,  and  others  of  America's 
great  citizens.  The  chapters  on  ‘  Democracy  and  Slavery '  and  '  Rupture  and 
Reconstruction'  deserve  thoughtful  perusal  by  every  American,  North  and  South." 
—  Public  Opinion. 


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923.242  B916B  ~  26705 

Bfryce 


studies  in  Gontsinpoi’ary 


D  4 


